Brewers: Luis Urias Finally Covid-Free, Is Cleared to Play

After battling with COVID-19 and spending weeks being quarantined, Luis Urias has been given the clear to start working out with the Brewers group in Appleton.

2020 has been a rough year for everyone, especially Luis Urias. January brought Urias a broken hamate bone, making him miss Spring Training in Arizona and was most likely going to miss the Brewers “original” Opening Day. Once that was healed, the sport shut down.

Then, as baseball was getting ready to start again, he tested positive for COVID-19 along with Angel Perdomo.

The 23-year-old was asymptomatic but had to spend more than three weeks in quarantine and had to register two back-to-back negative tests before he could be cleared to continue playing baseball.

Urias was acquired from San Diego in the trade that involved both Trent Grisham and Zach Davies. The Brewers acquired him to provide some competition for Orlando Arcia at shortstop and perhaps challenge him for the starting job. He hasn’t been able to provide much of a challenge just yet.

What Does This Mean For the Team?

While Luis Urias is still weeks away from training with the big league roster, knowing that he’s available to be back in the mix of the roster is a positive for the Crew. Since he’s unable to return to the team right away, Urias will be sent up to Appleton to get him back into the swing of things after missing so much time.

He has stated that he’s feeling healthy and is ready to get back to training and manager Craig Counsell told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “He’s full go now. It’s just a matter of really just getting into baseball shape, getting live at-bats and going at a good pace,” They plan on getting Urias going and doing as much as they can to ensure he’s ready within a couple of weeks to rejoin the team as they continue their season.

This once again brings up the shortstop discussion once Urias is back with the big league roster. Orlando Arcia is the current starting shortstop and he showed on Opening Day against the Chicago Cubs that he is still capable of providing some offense. He was the lone player on Friday night’s game to get a hit against Kyle Hendricks while the rest of the Brewers went a combined 0-for-27.

Due to Urias being set back so many times due to unfortunate events, the battle for shortstop is going to be a bit uphill for Urias.

As of right now, the only Brewer who hasn’t been cleared after testing positive is Angel Perdomo, who’s been trying to get a spot in the Brewers bullpen. Now that the team is together in one place and traveling, the precautions that are needed in order to avoid an outbreak are going to have to be more enforced and a little more strict.