A’s roster moves: Stephen Piscotty, Kirby Snead reinstated from COVID injured list

Two weeks into the season, the Oakland A’s have half a roster on various forms of the injured list. Now two of them are returning to action.

The A’s announced Saturday morning that outfielder Stephen Piscotty and pitcher Kirby Snead have been reinstated from the COVID injured list.

Both players have been out for over a week. Friday before last, before the team made an international trip to Toronto, Piscotty was placed on the COVID IL, in what turned out to be the first of a string of COVID-related absences around the club. That same day, Snead went on the Restricted List and didn’t join the trip to play the Blue Jays, and then on Monday he was transferred to the COVID IL with Piscotty and others.

Now they’ve both been cleared to return, which means two of the COVID substitutes must give up their spots. The odd men out are reliever Sam Selman and utilityman Drew Jackson.

Selman was sent back to Triple-A, and removed from the 40-man roster. Since he was called up using special rules for emergency COVID replacements, he didn’t need to pass through waivers to make this move, as a player usually would when being taken off the 40-man. The lefty certainly impressed during his cup of coffee in Oakland, tossing 2⅔ innings of scoreless relief on Friday.

Jackson was placed on the COVID IL, which is a bit ironic since he arrived here specifically as an emergency substitute for others on the COVID IL. Does that mean he’s now effectively the replacement for himself? His spot on the 40-man is only temporary under the special rules, but now he’s temporarily out of his temporary 40-man spot while on the COVID list. While here the East Bay product made it into three games, going 0-for-3 at the plate and playing three defensive positions (RF, LF, 3B).

Add it up, and the A’s swapped out lefties in the bullpen (Snead in, Selman out) and righties in the corner outfield (Piscotty in, Jackson out). Selman left it all on the field with his long outing last night before heading down to the minors, so now a fresh arm replaces him. Jackson is usually an infielder, but the versatile defender was getting most of his work helping fill the outfield.

Here’s the updated 28-man roster. There are four players on the COVID list (CV), four on the regular 10-day IL, two on the 60-day IL, and one on the Suspended List. Players marked with an asterisk* are specifically COVID substitutes called up under that special set of rules (Nick Allen was already on the 40-man, the others were not).