Regular season delay has a silver lining for KC Royals Adalberto Mondesi

The KC Royals shortstop has been rehabbing from surgery, and while all signs pointed to him being ready, the extra time will be good for the recovery.

While there were plenty of negatives in the KC Royals 2019 season, the start of the season for Adalberto Mondesi was not one of them. He seemed to have finally hit his stride, stealing bases, hitting decently, and of course, providing some great plays at shortstop.

Unfortunately, his season was cut short with a shoulder injury. He missed a good portion of the season and eventually, it was found that he would require surgery to correct the issue. While the team has remained hopeful from the beginning, it was still questioned whether or not Mondesi would be ready to play by opening day.

Everything was looking good and last weekend, Jeffrey Flanagan tweeted that Mondesi could start playing spring training games shortly.

Even better, just a few days later on March 12, Mondesi was in the line up for the spring training game against the Mariners.

While this game was unfortunately postponed, it’s a huge positive to see Mondesi’s name was in the lineup. While he may not have been doing too much diving and sliding if he would’ve gotten to play, the fact that the team found him fit enough to play shortstop is still a big step in the right direction.

Now, the unfortunate news has broken that the MLB has suspended spring training games and that the regular season will be delayed by at least two weeks. This is heartbreaking for many fans of baseball, but while not ideal, for Mondesi this could have a very positive outcome.

Even though he was set to be in the lineup for Thursday’s game, there are still likely some small step Mondesi must take to be fully recovered. He is likely limited in some ways in what he can and can’t do on the field and is probably there more to get the feeling back right now.

But while he was projected to be ready by opening day, the delay will provide him with at least two more weeks of recovery. Though it would have been nice for him to get into some spring training games where he could stretch it out and see how everything feels, the extra time will be crucial.

If moving too fast, it would be easy for Mondesi to fall to injury again and though things look good, there still remains some question about how quickly he has pushed to recover and play again.

While the delay of the season is upsetting to most, it’s important sometimes to see the silver linings. For the KC Royals 2020 season, just remember it may provide that extra time needed for Mondesi to fully recover, and finally have a full, healthy season.