Felix Hernandez sits out season
With Major League Baseball still yet to start their 2020 season, many fans and players have been left questioning whether it really makes sense to play the campaign at all. It has already been cut down from the originally scheduled 162 games to 60 games with cases of COVID-19 continue to spike across the United States. On Sunday, yet another person added their name to the list of players who will not be returning for the 2020 season.
Former Cy Young Award winner and MLB veteran Felix Hernandez has informed the Atlanta Braves that he does not plan to participate in the league’s return to play plans. Hernandez spent 15 seasons playing with the Seattle Mariners, being named an All-Star on six separate occasions.
After a disappointing season last year, the starting pitcher decided to start anew by signing a one-year minor league deal with the Braves. He impressed throughout spring training though – before it was eventually suspended – and was a likely candidate to be in the starting rotation with Atlanta this year.
With the season scheduled to start in three weeks, there has been a massive surge of COVID-19 cases across the United States that has more than just a couple of players concerned. Even those that do say they plan on playing have expressed their doubts that the league will be able to safely pull everything off.
Even the defending World Series champions the Washington Nationals have their fair share of issues after manager Dave Martinez confirmed that two of his 60 players that were tested came back with positive results. Nationals’ reliver Sean Doolittle did not waste any time commenting on the situation once he discovered what had happened.
“It’s a little bit disorganized,” Doolittle said according to the Canadian Press. “We’re not getting tests back in time. They still haven’t sent us the PPE. We’re supposed to have N95 masks, stuff like that, gowns, gloves. We’re supposed to have that stuff, we don’t have that stuff. Those are the things it’s going to take for people to stay safe enough for us to continue this season.”
The World Series winner claims he has still not completely made up his mind whether he will play this season, citing concerns from what he has seen up until this point.
“There’s a lot of players right now trying to make decisions that might be participating in camp that aren’t 100 per cent comfortable with where things are at right now,” Doolittle continued. “I’m planning on playing, but if at any point I start to feel unsafe, if it starts to take a toll on my mental health with all these things that we have to worry about and just kind of this cloud of uncertainty hanging over everything, then I’ll opt out.”
Both the Braves and Nationals had plenty of success on the field last year with Atlanta winning the National League East and Washington going on to win the World Series. It remains to be seen how a shortened season will affect play and how many more players will decide to opt out before the campaign actually starts, but the league remains confident that they will be able to safely resume play and award the World Series in 2020.
