Feb. 27—JUPITER, Fla. — When Tommy Edman’s flight from Atlanta to South Korea departs Monday night, weather permitting, and he tugs down an eye mask, finds just the right nook in his new neck pillow, he can take comfort as he begins the challenging travel ahead.

He’s had minor-league bus trips that were longer.

“I’ll be well-equipped to fly on the plane,” the shortstop said.

Edman leaves Cardinals’ camp Monday to catch a 15-hour, 50-minute nonstop flight from Georgia to Seoul and begins the migration of players to their World Baseball Classic teams and tournament sites. Lars Nootbaar follows Tuesday with a flight to Tokyo to join Team Japan, and a few days later pitcher Andre Pallante will jet to Taichung, Taiwan, to meet Team Italia. All three Cardinals could travel more than 14,800 air miles in the coming weeks if their teams advance out of pool play.

And that’s just the beginning. By the end of June, the three Cardinals players have the potential to play games on three continents: Asia for WBC, North America for regular season, and then London to face the Cubs for a weekend.

“Get those travel miles points ready,” Pallante said.

The individuals, team trainers and the Cardinals’ performance department have spent weeks planning to make sure the players are ready and their recovery will be smooth. In addition to the equipment provided to sleep on the plane, the team has helped the players with a preparation “check list” that includes hydration and sleep planning.

Nootbaar and Edman said they’ve been introduced to light therapy and outfitted with it to assist with jetlag. Edman and Pallante scheduled their flights so that they’ll land at their destinations in the morning. They’ll attempt to sleep on the second half of the flight to arrive and push through the day as a hard start to resetting the body clock.

“Break right into it,” Pallante said. “Don’t take a nap. That first day is kind of tough. But you don’t lose your way into the schedule.”

Said John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations: “I think we also have to bake in some grace to their schedule for when they return. Our players understand what they’re doing. I do think your point of noting these big trips, to Korea or Japan, it becomes important to position yourself for what you do when you land. What to expect is very real.”

Flying Birds

With Major League Baseball’s new schedule that has every team playing the 29 other teams at least one series and the Cardinals’ international trip to London, the 2023 Cardinals are likely to set an air miles record for the club. The Cardinals annually have ranked in the bottom four for travel thanks to the friendly confines of the National League Central. In 2022, the Cardinals had the third-fewest air miles traveled, with 26,772, per Baseball Savant.

In 2023, they’re scheduled to travel 35,524, 13th-most.

They haven’t traveled more than 29,360 in the past 13 seasons.

Within the first month of the season, the scope of the new schedule reveals itself as the Cardinals have a Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles trip. When they return from London in June, the Cardinals will have traveled an estimated 21,996 air miles. That is more than they had in the entire 2013 season when they had the fewest miles traveled of any bigleague team, at 21,167.

For Edman, the WBC could add nearly 16,000 more air miles to the first four months of the season as he goes to South Korea for workouts, Tokyo for the tournament and either returns to Florida to continue in the WBC or resume Cardinals’ spring training. Pallante could log more than 17,000, and Nootbaar will approach 15,000 before the Cardinals’ regular season begins.

“That’s why the Miami pool (in the WBC) has a benefit in that aspect,” Nootbaar said. “But, shoot, the rest of the teams we’re going to play have to do it anyway. That is going to be a big topic. We’re talking about it and we’re trying to find the best way to attack it. I know I don’t really get jetlagged too much. I think that’s the benefit of being 25.”

Nootbaar brought a suitcase packed for his trip to Japan, and he’s left it untouched in Florida so he can grab it and go Tuesday. Pallante passes the time watching anime, and he said he might download two full seasons of a favorite show to watch on his flight overseas. Edman will do the same, and also has some books he hopes to tackle.

When he lands, Edman has a routine he uses for the late and overnight flights the Cardinals have during the season: He goes through a routine to maintain his body alignment, and he stretches so that the cramped feeling of folding and unfolding from a plane doesn’t follow him into his sleep.

Except when he lands in Seoul, the goal is not to sleep. It’s a long way from that Class AA bus trip between Springfield, Mo., and Midland, Texas.

“Get on that time zone as quickly as I can,” he said.

Glitch in the clock

Three of the pitch clock violations called in the Cardinals’ 8-2 exhibition-game victory over Miami could be traced to the misapplication by officials on the field of Major League Baseball’s new rule at the start of an inning. Dakota Hudson, Jordan Hicks and one of Miami’s pitchers had a ball assigned to the count before they even threw a pitch in the inning. The issue was instead of giving a full 2 minute, 15 seconds between innings and then 30 seconds for the new batter, each pitcher only had the 2:15.

That threw off their timing. “I think that’s something they may want to clean up,” starter Miles Mikolas said. “I wonder if alcohol sales go down. They might want to give those extra 30 seconds.”

Hicks did not know he had been assessed a violation and the batter given a ball, so he was confused when he issued what he thought was a 3-1 leadoff walk.

“I have to learn with these new rules how to slow the game down,” Hicks said. “Maybe let me know it’s a ball. After that, I felt sped-up.”

The umpires met with both teams during the game to acknowledge the mistake. A detailed memo went to all teams Sunday morning with all of the concerns and questions about the new rules, and those will continue as players, managers, and umpires adapt. Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said such wrinkles will “get ironed out before we get out of camp.”

Ump fallout, etc. The Cardinals and Marmol awaited word from MLB on whether the manager would receive a fine for his comments on umpire C. B. Bucknor following Saturday’s exhibition game.

Marmol was critical of Bucknor’s refusal to shake his hand at home plate, stirring up issues the two had in August when Bucknor ejected Marmol and questioned his experience. Marmol suggested, at the time, Bucknor “retire.”

— Commissioner Rob Manfred attended the early innings of Sunday’s game at Roger Dean Stadium, and while he did not stop to talk about any umpire-manager feuds he did shout to the media: “Nice, brisk game, that’s for sure.”

— Mikolas needed only 28 pitches to retire all six batters he faced, and he struck out six of them in the two perfect innings of his first start of the spring.