Reds’ past outbreak may limit this one

When the Cincinnati Reds got to spring training in 2020, and reports began to circulate about a fast-spreading virus called COVID-19, players in the clubhouse seemed to realize the same thing at the same time.

“I remember looking around,” Reds reliever Lucas Sims said, “and a couple of guys who were still around (from the previous season) were like, ‘I’m pretty sure we had that.’ ‘I’m pretty sure this already ran through us last year.’ “They’ll never know for sure.

But MLB’s only known team to experience a COVID outbreak this season might also have been the league’s first — well before anyone in baseball knew what COVID-19 was.

And whether that September 2019 team outbreak that quickly decimated the active roster was COVID or something else, it’s impact then might be responsible for mitigating the impact of this outbreak — which landed four pitchers on the COVID injured list in two days over the weekend.

That’s because even before anyone with the organization had heard of COVID-19, general manager Nick Krall and other team officials instituted a strict new policy heading into 2020 spring training banning sick guys from the facilities.

“We really cracked down on it,” manager David Bell said. “Basically, if you’re not feeling well you don’t come to the ballpark, and if you aren’t feeling well at the ballpark, you leave.

“It’s very different from how I grew up in the game,” added Bell, a third-generation big-leaguer who was drafted in 1990 and played 12 years in the majors. “You just got an IV and you stayed. You’d never think of leaving.

“But we learned from that stuff. It crushed our season that year.”

Sims is one of three Reds players left from the 2019 outbreak that took down so many players so quickly it contributed to an 8-20 tailspin of a finish to the season. Joey Votto and Curt Casali also were on that team.

“All of us who were around have a little bit of PTSD about it,” Sims said. “It was bad. I remember being down in the bullpen and we were short, and not from usage and stuff. We were short from just available bodies that weren’t down there.”

The timing for this outbreak probably couldn’t be worse, with the surprising, young Reds in a playoff chase — locked in a four-way tie for the last National League wild-card spot after their weekend series split with the Chicago Cubs, with 23 games left.

And with no starting pitcher on the roster who was in the big leagues on June 4, thanks to Graham Ashcraft’s toe injury and a COVID IL that includes starters Hunter Greene, Brandon Williamson and Ben Lively.

Leverage reliever Fernando Cruz also is on the COVID IL.

Nobody’s sure whether the current outbreak has run its course. Or just how much the fourth-year policy might have helped slow the spread — which also has included support staff and even some office personnel.

“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Sims said of the policy that was laid out to the team when 2020 spring training started. “What happened in ’19, that stunk. And the timing of everyone getting sick right now is not ideal, right in the middle of a hunt.

“But it’s just a little bit of adversity. … You just keep the train moving.”

Bell said said the team has asked some non-essential staff to avoid the clubhouse as the team deals with the outbreak.

“We’ve even sent out some of the coordinators that work for the organization,” he said, “which is too bad, because we like having them around. We’re just trying to take all kinds of precautions like that.”

The Reds made 19 roster transactions in a 33-hour period between Friday morning and Saturday evening. Greene remained in San Francisco as of Sunday after staying behind as a precaution against exposing teammates when they flew home Wednesday night after playing the Giants.

Right-hander Carson Spiers was added as a COVID substitute and pressed into starting duty Sunday for the Reds’ major-league-leading 15th bigleague debut this season.

Top pitching prospect Connor Phillips is scheduled to be the 16th Tuesday against the red-hot Seattle Mariners because of the depleted roster.

It’s no wonder guys like Sims, who saw the impact in 2019, mention PTSD and start wondering all over again whether they were baseball’s first team to deal with a COVID outbreak — long before the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals did during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

“I think that might have been it, honestly,” Sims said.

“I remember that a couple guys were hurting. Somebody ended up going to the hospital with double pneumonia. We lost one for the season, lost another for a few weeks.

“It was in Seattle, too.”

The Seattle area is where the first cases in the United States were identified, months later.

But players have seemed to remain upbeat.

“It’s just a resilient bunch,” Sims said. They even won their next two games with ninth-inning comebacks, in Friday’s doubleheader nightcap and then Saturday night, after three of the COVID moves were made between games of the doubleheader.

Most impressive, the pitching held the Cubs to a total of three runs in those two games.

“The focus and the mindset doesn’t change,” second baseman Spencer Steer said. “We still have a job to do, and that’s to win baseball games.”

Said Sims: “It takes all 26. Or 28 (in September), or whatever. I don’t even know who’s active right now.”

ALBERT CESARE/THE ENQUIRER “All of us who were around have a little bit of PTSD about it,” Lucas Sims said of the 2019 outbreak. “It was bad. I remember being down in the bullpen and we were short, and not from usage and stuff.”