MLB REPORT

CLEVELAND INDIANS

The team will use a pinch-drummer for its home opener.

With long-time drummer and ballpark fixture John Adams recovering from heart surgery and unable to attend his first opener in Cleveland in 48 years, Black Keys drummer and life-long fan Patrick Carney will fill in and pound away from the left-field bleachers at Progressive Field during Monday’s game against Detroit.

“When I found out that John Adams wouldn’t be able to make Opening Day in Cleveland for the first time in almost fifty years, I reached out to the team,” Carney said. “I share John’s love of baseball and the Cleveland Indians franchise, and drumming for him during the home opener when he can’t physically be there feels like a meaningful way to show John the love and respect he deserves.

“I want to be there for John.”

Adams, who first started banging away on his drum in 1973, will bestow drumming duties and his bleacher seat for the day to Carney during an ingame video presentation.

FOREIGN NUMBERS DROP

More than 28 percent of Major League Baseball players were born outside the 50 states. That represents a drop for the fourth straight season.

MLB said there were 256 such players of the 906 on opening day rosters, injured lists, the restricted list and the paternity list.

The percentage was 28.3, down from 28.4 last year, when the active limit expanded from 25 to 30 during the pandemic before resetting at the new normal of 26 this year.

The percentage was a record 29.8 in 2017, then dropped to 29 in 2018 and 29.5 in 2019.