Brewers News: Victor Caratini to Covid-19 IL, Alex Jackson Recalled

It took a while but on April 26th, 2022, we finally got our first major league roster move of the Milwaukee Brewers’ season.

Yes, there had been some transactions at the minor league level, such as Triple-A utility man Jamie Westbrook getting sent to the Tigers for cash, and more recently Triple-A outfielder Dustin Peterson being traded to the Phillies in a similar transaction.

The major league roster, however, had remained untouched since Opening Day had taken place back on April 7th. Unfortunately, as so often happens, the first big league transaction took place as a result of a necessary trip to the injured list.

On Tuesday, the Brewers announced that catcher Victor Caratini would be heading to the injured list and replaced on the roster by Alex Jackson.

The news of Tuesday’s move was announced by the team on social media that afternoon. As was pointed out quickly by a few fans, the move to the injured list for Victor Caratini came without a specific injury designation.

That led to some, including Brewers beat writer for MLB.com Adam McCalvy to speculate that it would be a Covid-19 IL stint for Caratini. Shortly thereafter, it was confirmed that this would indeed be the case for the Milwaukee backstop.

As a reminder, since this is the first such IL stint for a Brewers player in 2022, there is no minimum stay for players on the Covid-19 IL (as noted here). Caratini just needs to report two negative tests at least 24 hours apart to return to the club.

In his first season with the Brewers after a trade to Milwaukee the day before the 2022 season began, Caratini had been off to an ok start to 2022. Through his first eight games with the Crew, he was slashing .238/.360/.429 with a double, a homer, and four runs batted in.

To fill the backup spot at catcher, the Brewers recalled Alex Jackson from the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Fans will recall that he also was acquired in a trade right before the season began.

Jackson, who has 61 games of MLB experience to his name, had been slashing .229/.300/.729 through 10 games so far with the Sounds in 2022. Prior to Tuesday, he’d had hits in five of his last six games, including a double and a wild inside-the-park grand slam last Friday.

Since he joined the Milwaukee organization so late, Jackson never had a chance to get familiar with the Brewers pitching staff in spring training. So as manager Craig Counsell noted, it could be a few days before he sees any playing time on the field.

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The Brewers play series against the Pirates and Cubs over the next few games, so it hopefully shouldn’t be too hard to keep things afloat until their regular backup catcher returns.