Updates on Francona, Plesac, Clevinger

CLEVELAND — Indians skipper Terry Francona will miss his 13th game of the season on Friday night, and he will likely be away from the club for the rest of the weekend. The Tribe announced on Tuesday that Francona was scheduled to undergo a procedure at the Cleveland Clinic this

CLEVELAND — Indians skipper Terry Francona will miss his 13th game of the season on Friday night, and he will likely be away from the club for the rest of the weekend.

The Tribe announced on Tuesday that Francona was scheduled to undergo a procedure at the Cleveland Clinic this week, and the team was hopeful that he’d be able to return before Friday’s contest at home against Detroit. However, the manager didn’t have his surgery until Friday afternoon, which made it unlikely for him to bounce back before the end of the three-game series.

“I think Tito said it the other day: He wants to do his best to try to manage as much as possible,” president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said. “We don’t yet know how likely that is. We continue to encourage him and try to remind him every step of the way that the most important thing is his health and well-being, and we’ll continue to prioritize those. And if that means there have to be days away from the ballpark, then that’s what we’ll need to do. And we’ll continue to do what we always do, which is coming together and figuring out how to work through things when he’s not here.”

When Francona returned to the Indians last week, he had said he was still feeling uncomfortable, and Antonetti confirmed that those feelings haven’t yet gone away. The team is now hopeful that Friday’s procedure will allow him to take a step forward in finally starting to feel better after an 11-month battle with this gastrointestinal condition.

Sandy Alomar Jr. will continue to fill in as manager for the time being, and he is still in communication with Francona, who’s been watching each game from home. And while it’s been a difficult time for both the Tribe’s skipper and his club, Antonetti said that the only fun part of this has been texting with Francona during games.

“We have a healthy exchange while games are going on,” Antonetti said. “His spirits are great. He’s still locked in on the team. He and I and [general manager] Mike [Chernoff] talk a bunch of times every day. His spirits are really good. He’s just looking forward to feeling better.”

How to handle Plesac and Clevinger
The Indians penciled in prospect Triston McKenzie for Saturday’s start against the Tigers, as Zach Plesac and Mike Clevinger finish out their minimum of 10 days at the alternate training site in Lake County.

Prior to making the decision to option them last Friday, the front office held a team meeting to get a feel from its players and see what everyone’s opinion was of the situation. But Antonetti said he doesn’t expect to take the same steps if or when Clevinger and Plesac are recalled.

“Yeah, I don’t expect that we would have any sort of team meetings or anything like that,” Antonetti said. “But I do think understanding the team’s readiness to accept them back into the environment is something that we’ll consider. And that would be a consideration as we made the decision. But again I don’t want to lose sight — everyone’s focus, and the decisions we make, will be around how do we build the best team and how do we have the best group of guys up at the Major League level that give us the best chance to win and win a World Series? And that’s the lens through which we’ll continue to make decisions.”

The pair of righties can be recalled by the big league team beginning Monday. Clevinger threw five innings (80 pitches) in Lake County on Wednesday and Plesac threw five innings (77 pitches) on Thursday.

“What next week will be at is really hard to predict,” Antonetti said. “We’ll just have to continue to take things a day at a time, see what our team needs and what opportunities there might be and figure out who might be best served filling those opportunities when they arise.”

León still away from team
Backstop Sandy León had to leave the Indians prior to their series in Pittsburgh on Tuesday due to a family emergency. He was expected to miss a minimum of three days, and he was not yet back with the club on Friday.

“We’re hopeful we’ll have a little bit more information over the weekend,” Antonetti said. “We’re optimistic he’ll be able to rejoin us here at some point in the next few days.”