Luzardo is keeping his arm in shape with home exercises while he remains in quarantine due to his positive coronavirus test, Martin Gallegos of MLB.com reports. "He seemed great when I talked to him," A's pitching coach Scott Emerson said. "I'm not the guy to ask on the health stuff, but when we're talking casually, he's excited and ready to go to show everybody who Jesus Luzardo is."
The promising southpaw will have to produce two negative COVID-19 tests 24 hours apart before being allowed to rejoin his teammates, and there isn't a specific indication of where Luzardo is in that process at this point. The 22-year-old is reportedly feeling well and remains free of symptoms, so the team feels he'll be able to quickly ramp up for his regular-season debut when he returns. Nevertheless, manager Bob Melvin does plan to be cautious with his prize prospect, even if that means deploying him in some relief situations to start. "The luxury with him is that he did pitch out of the bullpen last year and as was successful doing it," Melvin said. "We'll do whatever is best for him and the team, but it depends on when we get him back. He's already politicking to me that he's gonna be ready to go and will only need to throw a bullpen once. We want to make sure, obviously, physically, that he's in position to do that."