With light blue latex gloves pulled tight on his hands and a spot reserved for him against the wall near the on-deck circle, prospect Johan Oviedo’s assignment was hardly glamorous Friday night. But he couldn’t beat the view of watching two veterans work through hitters.
Oviedo manned the rosin bags and baseballs during live batting practices by Adam Wainwright and Kwang Hyun Kim at Busch Stadium. As part of baseball’s COVID-19 protocols, the young righthander had to swap out the rosin bags so that Kim didn’t use Wainwright’s and Wainwright didn’t use Kim’s. Oviedo also had to retrieve baseballs that needed to be discarded, all while keeping those gloves on and rosin bags sorted.