Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
BASEBALL IS BACK!
The defending champion Dodgers tooled up for 2021 by signing Trevor Bauer. The Padres added Blake Snell and Yu Darvish. Nolan Arenado went to the Cardinals, Francisco Lindor is with the Mets, and George Springer and Marcus Semien have teamed up on the Blue Jays. When stadiums open Thursday, though, they’ll hardly be baseball’s biggest additions. Pack away those cardboard cutouts — baseball fans are coming back to the ballpark. Following a pandemic-truncated 2020 season full of rule book rewrites, schedule upheaval and a nearly complete lack of in-person fans, Major League Baseball is opening its gates for a 162-game regular season. The Texas Rangers are on track to become the first team in any major U.S.based sports league to have a full-capacity crowd since the coronavirus pandemic struck when they open Globe Life Field for their home opener April 5. MLB’s 29 other teams will limit capacities at the start of the season — most between 10 and 30 percent. The Rangers will also revert to limited capacities following opening day. A return to peanuts and Cracker Jack, but there will still be face masks, too. That also goes for managers, coaches and players in the dugout — a reminder that although baseball is getting back to normal, the COVID-19 pandemic is still likely to impact the 2021 season. The on-field storylines have plenty of juice: a surging rivalry between the Dodgers and Padres, a New York Mets club energized by new ownership, a crop of uber-talented young stars including Fernando Tatis Jr., Ronald Acuña Jr. and Juan Soto. Plenty looms off the diamond, too, including a potential labor stoppage in 2022, along with potential complications as MLB navigates a season through what the country hopes is the end of the pandemic.
Pandemic ball
Nearly all of last year’s health and safety protocols have returned, including some on-field rules that frustrated some fans. Doubleheaders will consist of two seven-inning games, and runners will start on second base to start extra innings — experiments introduced during last year’s condensed regular season to ease the burden on pitchers amid a flood of postponements prompted by positive tests and contact tracing. Other 2020 changes have been put on the bench. The universal designated hitter is gone, and so is the expanded postseason. Both were added last summer, but negotiations between the league and players’ association to potentially bring them back fell through. Scheduling figures to remain a headache. There were 45 games postponed for coronavirus-related reasons last year, and all but two were made up. Players will again be tested 3-4 times per week for COVID-19 and heavily restricted in what they can do during their time off. Veteran lefty Jon Lester, signed by Washington as a free agent in January after six seasons with the Cubs, compared the exhaustion of last year’s protocols to a deep playoff run. “Mentally, you don’t realize how draining it is until you’re done,” he said. “I think last year was that. It was two months of that mental grind of the testing, worrying about the testing, making sure you’re doing all the right things.”
Old faces
Championship managers Alex Cora and AJ Hinch are back after serving one-year bans stemming from the 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal. Cora — fired by Boston shortly before last year’s camp opened — was re-hired by the Red Sox, where he won a title in 2018. Hinch, fired as Houston’s manager in the wake of his suspension, was hired to replace Ron Gardenhire in Detroit. The only other new manager is a throwback — Tony La Russa, now in charge of the Chicago White Sox. Already a Hall of Famer, La Russa hasn’t managed since 2011, and his hiring was met by skepticism about his potential handling of modern players.
They’re back
Several MLB stars who opted out of the 2020 season have returned for 2021, including Los Angeles Dodgers lefthander David Price, San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey and Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Lorenzo Cain. Nearly 20 players are expected back in the big leagues after passing on the pandemic-shortened season for varying reasons. Price had concerns about the protocols, while Posey stayed away after he and his wife adopted twin girls who were born prematurely. Price said that after watching his Dodgers win a World Series from afar, there was no doubt he’d want to aid their title defense.
“I feel like our team and MLB handled it extremely well,” Price said.Others to watch
Bauer, last year’s NL Cy Young Award winner, has joined starters Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler with the eight-time defending NL West champion Dodgers, putting them in prime position for a Series repeat. LA’s toughest challenger might be an upstart Padres team that revamped its rotation with Snell and Darvish to back slugging stars Tatis and Manny Machado -- a duo that might also compete with the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts for NL MVP. The AL champion Rays have their work cut out repeating as division champs after the Yankees re-signed DJ LeMahieu to a $90 million, six-year deal and added starters Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon, while the Blue Jays added Springer and Semien to a lineup already led by Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Many of the top free agents ended up staying with their 2020 club, including Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto and shortstop Didi Gregorius, Braves slugger Marcell Ozuna, Astros outfielder Michael Brantley and Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner. Mike Trout, a three-time MVP for the Los Angeles Angels, is hoping to win a postseason game for the first time. Twoway teammate Shohei Ohtani could be the key to getting him there. Tommy John surgery and lingering injury issues have mostly kept Ohtani off the mound since he won AL Rookie of the Year in 2018, but he’s been phenomenal on both sides this spring. LA might even let him hit and pitch in the same game for the first time in his U.S. career.
“I’m very excited to show what I can do,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “That’s why I came here back in 2018. I’m sure I disappointed a lot of people the last two years by being hurt. I am looking forward to showing everyone what I’m capable of.”