Marlins getting boost as players who tested positive for COVID-19 return to the roster
For about two and a half weeks, Garrett Cooper was coughing up mucus as he dealt with his bout with the novel coronavirus. He battled with chills and body aches. He spent more time trying to break a fever than thinking about the next time he would use his bat to break open a game.
The Miami Marlins slugger admits that his COVID-19 experience was mild relative to others, but he also serves as a reminder that the virus doesn’t discriminate. It can impact even the most seemingly healthy people — like a 29-year-old professional baseball player.
“It took a lot out of me,” Cooper said. “I was out cold for a few weeks. It was tough.”
Cooper was one of 18 Marlins players who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in late July during the Marlins’ first road trip of the season. That group, more than half of Miami’s Opening Day roster, endured a mentally and physically draining month on their road to recovery and path back to the field.
While not everyone experienced symptoms, the group that tested positive quarantined for four days at a separate Philadelphia hotel from the team hotel before taking sleeper buses back to South Florida. They remained quarantined once they got back in town for another two weeks before being cleared to resume practicing at the team’s alternate training site in Jupiter in mid-August.
Many stayed away from their families to minimize risk of transmitting the virus.
“It’s been hard,” said catcher Chad Wallach, who experienced minimal symptoms. “I’ve missed five weeks of my daughter growing up. She’s young. She’s going to be 1 soon. Those were five long weeks. It’s tough. I miss my wife, too. They left right before kind of everything broke out on the team, so it was kind of perfect timing looking back at it.”
Players, such as Cooper, have begun trickling back onto the active roster during the past two weeks, giving the Marlins needed reinforcements to get through this final stretch of the season that has playoff implications on the line. The Marlins entered Thursday, their final off day of the year, with a 16-16 record that puts them third in the National League East and holding on to the NL’s top wild card spot.
The Marlins close out the season with 28 games in 24 days. That includes a stretch of four doubleheaders in 10 days. All but eight of those games are against teams who entered Thursday holding onto playoff spots.
Underscored in all this is that the Marlins have had their first-half success despite fielding a motley crew-esque roster that has seen 57 players take the field, 16 players make MLB debuts and 120 transactions take place over the course of 32 games.
“It’s fun to be a part of this,” Cooper said of the playoff race. “The last two years, it hasn’t been like this. To be in a race like this is all you can ask for as a player.”
Cooper is one of eight of the players who tested positive to return to the active roster. Also back with the team are shortstop Miguel Rojas, catchers Jorge Alfaro and Wallach, and pitchers Sandy Alcantara, Yimi Garcia, Robert Dugger and Alex Vesia. Jose Urena is expected to rejoin the club soon and take over the final spot in the rotation that opened up when Elieser Hernandez went on the injured list. Caleb Smith was sent to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Starling Marte trade. Adam Conley was designated for assignment.
The rest of the group — outfielder Harold Ramirez, utility infielder Sean Rodriguez, and pitchers Jeff Brigham, Jordan Holloway, Nick Neidert, Aaron Northcraft and Ryne Stanek — continue to work out in Jupiter.
“We’re gonna need our guys back,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said after the first wave of players returned. “Teams are too talented out there that you can just think you’re going to go throw stuff together and you’re gonna be a playoff team. We’re gonna need our guys back, and then we’re gonna need to perform.”
So far, the bulk of the players who returned have performed.
Cooper has eight hits, three doubles, two home runs and seven RBI in seven games back and is now hitting .313 on the season. He said he “kind of got those butterflies again” when he took his first at-bat on Aug. 28.
Alcantara fortified the Marlins’ starting rotation that also includes an improved Pablo Lopez as well as top prospects Sixto Sanchez and Trevor Rogers.
Alfaro has caught 10 of 13 games since rejoining the team.
Rojas, who went 7 for 10 before the monthlong layoff, is batting .250 (9 for 36) with seven RBI and hit a go-ahead three-run home run in his first at-bat back against the Washington Nationals on top of playing his usual above-average defense.
Garcia, one of the Marlins’ key late-inning relievers, has thrown five scoreless innings out of the bullpen this year including three over the Marlins’ last four games.
“We’ve been fighting a lot,” Alcantara said. “We’re trying to do a lot of things. We want to surprise a lot of people. We’ve got to keep fighting.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2020 at 12:34 PM.
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