A’s closer Liam Hendriks is keeping tabs on the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) across a number of fronts, Including his current location of Arizona, his permanent home in Florida, and the motherland down under.
“A lot of the stores are barren,” Hendriks said regarding Australia on Thursday night. “My dad went to the shops the other day, and said the only meat products at the butcher was a bone marrow. And the pasta aisle was knocked out.”
Meanwhile stateside, his conversations with fellow baseball players greatly center around the unknown.
“Behind the scenes there’s just a lot of basic business stuff,” Hendriks said. “Like what is going on right now? Other facilities that are open. Are they not open? What can we do? Go home or stay here?”
While uncertainty could persist for a while, Hendriks' plan hasn't been affected. He basically throws year-round anyways, and won’t vary from that schedule that’s been in place since his last MLB game.
“I took two weeks off from throwing, and then I got back into it. I started throwing bullpen [sessions] in November,” Hendriks explained. “My plan of attack now is two bullpens a week. Hopefully within the next couple weeks we can track the trajectory of the way this is all going, and we can find out a date.”
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Hendriks says he and most players are poised to play 162 games in whatever fashion is most reasonable. But they’d also try to fit in as many games as they can when the time is right. Including a lot more doubleheaders.
“As long as they give us the ability to expand the roster a little bit to make sure the guys aren’t getting overrun, I’d be for it,” Hendriks said. “Position players, I’m not sure. We’ve got a couple guys who play every game, no matter what, that may affect them a little bit.
"Everyone hopefully can stay safe. That’s the biggest thing right now, staying safe. And hopefully we can eradicate this thing in a few weeks and get back to baseball in May.”