The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
McClure on MiLB state: ‘Depressing’
Minor League Baseball has been on life support for months during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
May 28, it hit a tipping point, and all but signified fans, teams and prospects won’t have baseball at the minor-league level to look forward to this summer.
According to several reports, hundreds of minor-leaguers were released and hundreds more are expected.
There was good news for Mentor graduate Kade McClure, as he confirmed to The News-Herald he was not on a list of White Sox minorleaguers released.
McClure was a seventh-round pick of the White Sox in 2017 and is a promising right-handed pitcher who was expected to start the season at Double-A Birmingham.
All of that seems highly unlikely now, along with the promise of the minor-league season, which like much of the current climate amid the pandemic was another punch to the gut for sports fans nationwide.
Include McClure who’s feeling that punch.
“It’s depressing,” he said. “There’s nothing anyone can do. Everyone is in the same boat ... I wish I could be playing a game today. It’s almost certain minor-league baseball won’t happen in any fashion. We won’t be playing in a host city.”
March 12, McClure and his White Sox teammates were told everyone needed to leave the team’s spring training complex in Arizona and not come back because of the pandemic.
It was a blow for all of baseball, and now McClure and hundreds of other prospects are left with many questions and few answers about the 2020 season.
The 2017 draft pick from the University of Louisville had high hopes for this season. He’s been steady in two-plus seasons in the minors. In 174 1/3 innings pitched, he’s 8-7 with a 3.05 ERA, 160 strikeouts, a 1.22 WHIP and a save.
McClure — living in the Pittsburgh area with his fiance — was working out five days a week at an area field with about 10 other players to stay sharp in the case of a possible return.