SATURDAY: Games scheduled for today and tomorrow between the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates has been postponed after a Reds’ player tested positive for COVID-19. There have been no more positive tests beyond the one for the Reds, per MLB Insider Jon Heyman (Twitter links). Given potential exposure during yesterday’s game, there’s more than enough reason to push tonight’s game at the very least.
MLB issued a press release announcing the cancellations, which read: “Following a positive test for COVID-19 by a Cincinnati Reds player, tonight’s scheduled game, as well as tomorrow afternoon’s contest, between the Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates at Great American Ball Park have been postponed to allow for additional testing and to complete the contact tracing process. Major League Baseball will continue to provide updates as they become available.”
FRIDAY: An unidentified Reds player has tested positive for the coronavirus, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. As a result, the likelihood is that the league will postpone their game against the Pirates on Saturday, Jeff Passan of ESPN reports.
Positive COVID-19 tests across the majors have thrown a wrench into the league’s plans early this season, and it’s now up in the air when the Reds and Pirates will return to action. So far, the teams have split the first two contests in a four-game set, but it appears they’ll have to make up at least one game at a later date.
The virus already impacted both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh before Friday. The Reds’ Matt Davidson tested positive last month, though he has since returned to action, while Mike Moustakas and Nick Senzel missed time after exhibiting symptoms.
Meanwhile, the Pirates have seen the likes of Gregory Polanco, Keone Kela and Ke’Bryan Hayes sit out because of COVID (Polanco and Kela are now back on the MLB roster). Furthermore, Pittsburgh’s three-game series against the Cardinals this week was postponed because of the outbreak that has taken a toll on the St. Louis club.
I am sick and tired of 2020.
Those are two of the symptoms. You should go get tested.
ZING!
Hahahaha
Quote of the day
Lol
The name says it all.
SHAZAM
if they will postpone games for one positive test then this season is untenable. the point here was to have the alternate site guys to be able to fill in. i get other guys may have it, but haven’t other guys hit the COVID-19 IL during the season without this happening? why is this any different from Matt Davidson?
They aren’t postponing games for one positive test, they’re postponing games because there could be multiple that have yet to test positive and they could be transmitting the virus to others, unbeknownst to them.
Amazing 8 months into this thing, you still have to explain this
This is why the season or whatever this garbage is shouldn’t have happened.Unfortunately the players and owners are greedy selfish aholes.
No, they just had to do it a different way. Bubbles work. Going on like normal, even without fans, does not.
So true. But greedy owners didn’t want to spend the money to establish a bubble and also held out hope they could play to limited crowds by this time. Another example of Manfred’s bumbling ways.
I could be mistaken but I do believe the players stated a bubble was a non-starter for them
again, a bubble format doesn’t work as well in baseball. one also notes this would have lasted for the whole season instead of just the playoffs and included every team in the league rather then just a portion. it was never going to happen.
Sorry but one positive test shouldn’t postpone a game. They have to wear masks everywhere but the field.. last I checked they are pretty distanced on the field.
But they aren’t wearing masks everywhere but the field. Some do, but most are treating it as business as usual. The other night I watched a non-masked Nationals player get a piggyback ride from the manager through a dugout slap gauntlet after a home run. Fun? Sure, but not exactly smart in today’s world. And that incident is not isolated either. Just business as usual for most players.
and i get that, but what in saying is you have had guys who have got it but games havent been cancelled. whenever a single guy has gotten ot previously they have hit the IL alone and things were okay. (such as the examples mentioned in the article) Like i said, i know it can spread, but when you can contact trace that guy and isolate him and the guys he came near you can still salvage the situation without postponing games and disrupting the schedule. and if thats not possible, again, the season is not feasible.
Exactly. I don’t see the difference here.
Not only what Darkside said, but even if they successfully prevent a large majority from getting this, they have to repeat all this next season. Just deal with this, it’s not going anywhere – play ball! Or don’t. But, make a choice.
Soto tested positive on opening day and the Nats played. How was that ok and since then it hasnt been?
The Marlins situation caused the people in charge to panic. Matt Davidson played the Reds first game, tested positive afterwards, was put on the IL, and the Reds played on without him. Since then, it’s all about the commissioner’s office not wanting to look bad by not postponing the games.
I want people to be safe too, but postponing for an incubation period for people testing negative makes no sense whatsoever. There is always a chance that someone is positive on EVERY team because no one is quarantined.
Senzel didn’t join in the celebration line at the end of yesterdays game. He walked off the field with a coach, threw his glove onto the top of the dugout. The rest of the Reds were watching him as they high fived it. I’m thinking he got the test results at the end of last nights game.
If true, that would be just in the Nick of time!
1 positive test and they postpone? That doesn’t make sense. I’m guessing now they’ll have to wait to get the entire roster to test negative before they can resume play?
Even if we as people disagree about the severity of the virus, I think we all have to understand the cautionary approach from a liability standpoint. Though I do think the idea of a taxi squad for these situations seems pointless now
Great point about the taxi squad Jake. Even if “said player” goes down on the “IL”, the team could just replace “said player” via the alternate site. All in all, good point.
The only good I could see with the taxi squad is for NON-Covid related incidents. Say a team is on a road trip, and the catcher breaks his ankle. Boom, you have another catcher there the next day.
Literally what happened when Starlin Castro broke his wrist and they had Luis Garcia step in. It was good, but I think everyone finally realizes COVID is completely different and isn’t as simple as next man up.
They postponed the games to conduct additional testing and conduct contact tracing. Right now, they don’t know who the infected player came into contact with. It has nothing to do with the availability of the taxi squad.
If you call up players from the taxi squad right away, you risk infecting them, because the team honestly doesn’t know how much the virus has spread . A player testing postive could have been spreading the virus for a week–it takes 5 to 14 days for the virus to incubate enough for it show up on a test, but the player is infectious the entire time. That’s why the Cardinals didn’t call up their replacements until after they were cleared to return to play. both times.
It’s also why the KBO stipulated that a single positive COVD test would shut down the entire league for two weeks.
Why is it hard? Let’s say 7 guys test positive in a 2 day span…where are you supposed to get those bodies?
Before you can replace a man though, you have to test him. Take the 24 hours and hopefully NOT have a Miami situation where they miss 10 days of games or whatever, having 3 guys positive, then More 2 guys Positive, etc. Test everyone, pick out whoever is positive. If it is just the 1 guy, they play the next day. If 5 guys are positive though, it’s in the clubhouse. It’s not safe in 24 hours just because There’s a single negative. The tests aren’t good enough yet. Blame the virus
I can’t believe people are upset they are adjusting protocol as they have situations are handled the first time, second time and so on. Really? That’s the complaint now?
Hey commonsense, my point being that if you are taking the one day break, it is pointless to carry around the taxi squad. Say 1 guy tests positive, and nobody else in 24 hours, just have another player “shipped” to the team from the alternate training site. No need to lug around 3 other players for corona purposes.
I didn’t mention this originally but smuz hit it above, another aspect of the taxi squad is the idea if you have a replacement with you, you don’t have to go to you alternate site.
Having that guy either fly commercial or drive 10 hours or something to the team.. is not ideal. They can’t just buy a 50$ southwest ticket and be cool with it like any other year
I think they’re trying to avoid commercial as much as possible this year, period. Just charter flights as a team. So much so the guy pitching the next series isn’t even going ahead of the team. That’s unheard of, minus this year. Now the next day starter could not be getting to bed till 4amlike the rest of the team. But It’s about minimizing the chance a player is Even potentially put in a high risk situation, ie public flights. Limit those and in theory you should limit the outbreaks
Is it perfect? Of course not. But it does have a purpose and imo a justified one
They stated the 5 man taxi squad is so that players called up because of regular injuries don’t have to catch commercial flights. It has never had anything to do with COVID-19 infections, except insofar as the reason they don’t want players catching commercial flights is a fear of that not being safe (and perhaps it’s not so much the player’s safety they’re concerned about as the liability and public relations issue of a sick call-up infecting the general public on such a flight).
They have to retest until everyone receives new tests that show negative. Just goes to show come 2021 the league will have to provide less games and more time off to be able to make up fir situations like this.
Hopefully there will be a proven and effective vaccine in place by next spring for everyone’s sake as well as that of MLB.
I agree, Captain Obvious.
It doesn’t make sense. Plus they can test the rest of the team and all test negative today, and then a bunch could test positive 3 days from now.
I hate commenting on these corona articles, because they are the same old song and dance… but here we go.
Coronavirus bad.
WTF!
With the number of guys in baseball who are diabetic or cancer survivors or have a heart condition or some other pre existing condition they can make COVID deadly, I foreone am happy they postpone FOR ONE DAY to ensure it’s just a single positive
Do you people need to bury a 32 year old or 28 year old professional athlete before taking caution? Cmon
If the pandemic has shown us one thing, it’s that trusting people to do the safe and/or right thing is a bad idea…
the problem is the schedule is sport cramped as it is already and the potential for more situations like the Cardinals to cramp it even more makes one game hardly trivial.
Your complaints are so trivial. Oh no we have to play one double header!
Or be the marlins and not catch it early, then have 15 people or whatever they had end up positive. Then your schedule is really SOL
It’s weird you’re complaining about missing one game but ignoring the alternative; not skipping a single game and keep playing (Cards+Marlins)… led to teams missing 7 or more days of games. One double header is a lot cleaner than 7 bro….
dont you see what’s going on with the Cardinals? they already may be limited to 58 games and that means another team probably is too. if you add another long disruption into the same division you start to lose a serious number of games.
The NBA has had zero positive tests in their bubble. Just saying.
Zero positive tests in the NHL bubble AND the best hockey I’ve seen in years.
I’m a pens fan so it wasn’t the best I seen … sad face
Best hockey you’ve seen in years??? You’re out of your mind. This “playoff hockey” is a joke. No energy, no finishing hits, no atmosphere. It’s a pond hockey tournament but with fake crowd noise.
Agreed. Maybe I’m just a salty 0-2 caps fan, but the crowd energy is definetly missed. That’s what playoff hockey is known for! Still more intensity than I thought, but not the same
It hasn’t been the best hockey in years. You’re kidding yourself there.
Yep. MLB, a microcosm of the entire country. A few bad apples can poison the orchard. Lol
Microcosm of human beings in general.
I bet it is Senzel. And that sucks, btw.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they say tomorrow it was a false positive. I think the Cardinals are scheduled to play the Reds next week. If those games get postponed, the NL is royally F’d.
Idk…..playing 45 games in a month will surely be interesting. Start early enough and u can get a triple header in
I think everyone would agree a false positive would be the best case scenario
Make up one game, protect the safety of 2 teams with 100+ People. Again better safe than sorry with this honestly
Hopefully it’s bell. And if the baseball gods are good- he’ll test positive til Christmas. Uh….asymptotic of course
I don’t know who the Pirates play next week, but they really need to follow the CDC guidelines for the next few days.
Their schedule is going to get as messed up as the teams with outbreaks without any internal positives.
Pirates and Red Sox will play in “First Draft Pick Series”. More fun than 16 team playoffs.
As they played in the first WS.
Reds were so scared about playing Pirates they got sick about it.
Dang last week I wanted to bet 1000 dollars that it wouldn’t be just the Cardinals and Marlins that would be infected with the virus. It’s not the players fault people. It’s a pandemic. This season should have never been played.
I mean, the vast majority of new tests are negative. Like 95%+ in mlb, and I think it’s closer to 98-99%. MLBn shows the stats weekly and I’m going off memory but it’s not a high %
Also, Sorry but Clearly Some players are at fault. Marlin players were not taking protocols seriously, we know this. Manfred wrote a letter to Clark saying they’ll cancel season if players continue acting like Marlins)… Idk about cards off top of my head but I do know the marlins. And that’s Been the biggest outbreak..
There’s a lot to be said for being an escape for the country during a pandemic. Baseball was the first sport back. I’d bet a lot of people are watching baseball more than before.
If players took it seriously from the start, we’d be at 0 or 1 outbreaks. Players are adults man. Blame the men not being responsible… not the game trying to be an escape for the country
Blame the virus. I’m sure the 3 million people affected here in the US don’t blame themselves. There is no perfect safe practice. They is no cure and blaming players is just quite frankly ridiculous. There is no way to stop the spread. If there was there would be no pandemic. Just simply postpone this season and hopefully with some much needed luck they can play again next year. Is there really going to be excitement for whatever team wins this year in an asterisk filled season of 60 games? Forget about it!
of course, because no one in this country ever takes responsibility for their actions anyway. sure there will be spread with precautions, but a lot of this spread is probably from people not doing so.
Not doing what? Living life?
Wearing a mask, maintaining social distance… you know doing what you are supposed to do in a pandemic.
No, you see, wearing a mask and having to social distance means you can’t live life
…for some reason
Biggest hoax in history! Life’s been good, I don’t mind dying. Just not before tomorrow.
One player tests positive…que overreacting freak out….lol.
99 per cent mlbtr commenters: i think its the right thing to do. Safety first! Family over blahblahblah….so brave! Do you agree too? Like my comment…why are we playing?? Waaaaaahhh?
Should have stayed out of the casino lol
Sick of the fake casino news. It’s a pandemic people. 3 million people in the US couldn’t avoid it.
Why does MLB continue to act surprised and without a plan to move forward with every positive test? The whole expanded roster and alternate training site concept was designed to keep the season moving when the inevitable positives started to show themselves. Instead, they take the no thought, panic driven approach to just cancel games. Imbeciles!
“Given potential exposure during yesterday’s game…”
Please. Half the Miami team had it and not one player from the Phillies got it.
One example is an anecdote, not a scientific study. And maybe half the Reds have it, we won’t know for a while. And the Phillies visiting clubhouse manager did catch it.
The players catching it from the other team on the field is very unlikely (because it generally takes 10 minutes in proximity), but personnel interacting (like clubhouse managers) forming a chain of transmission that eventually leads to players is a more significant risk. Catcher to umpire to other catcher is also a possibility. Not the most likely scenario thankfully, but worthy of caution until we have more than one data point to go by.
One example is an anecdote, but no examples is supposition. He at least has one example of something that actually happened in real life instead of supposing what could happen in certain events.
I’m not saying you are wrong and he is right, but I will say that your belittling his statement as just an anecdote is completely unnecessary and arrogant.
He didn’t belittle it. He properly identified his reasoning as applying a single anecdotial example to how to approach a pandemic we’ve been fighting for months, and then explained why that reasoning was incorrect.
One example doesn’t correlate into what would happen. It doesn’t consider other variables, it doesn’t even examine why an infection didn’t happen. It simply stated that because one team walked away from a single game with an infected team unscathed, the whole idea of “potential exposure” was ridiculous. It isn’t, and providing an ancedotal example as “proof” isn any proof at all.
This season has still gone well regardless of the marlins, cardinals, and now this. They positive % is still extremely low, and who knows how these guys have contracted the virus (marlins out at clubs? The flight attendant?). Point being, there have been very few positive tests, and if it weren’t for players possibly not following guidelines the numbers could be lower. I’ve actually enjoyed this season more than I thought. Glad to have some sort of normalcy again and I think watching games in actual stadiums is part of it
Let the taxi squad play, and start bringing back the regulars after they go through the protocol. Continuing to delay games is ridiculous.
Taxi squad is not the team at the alternate training site. Just making sure you know the difference. A lot of people still don’t.
You’d have to have a completely separate 28 man roster to pull it off. If player A tests positive but B & C have but haven’t tested positive yet and you bring D & E off the taxi squad the B & C could infect D & E and then the cycle happens again.
End this farce
Agreed end it. Under the circumstances nothing is normal. These games wouldn’t have been the same had the pandemic never happened. Can’t wait to watch the ending of the World Series this year where the players won’t not only be mobbing each other. They’re won’t be any handshaking or high fives. That is IF everyone is obeying social distancing. What a joke!
Themed’s Cardinals cant stay out of the casino, got the Rona, screwed up the season and now he wants the season cancelled. This guy gets funnier every time he pokes his head out.
Cards win 2 today. Cubs lost
Casino theory is fake news. A 60 game World Series winner is laughable.
The Royals have to play the Reds at Kauffman Stadium Tuesday and Wednesday of this coming week. I wonder if they’ll postpone those games?
The season we have is due mainly to the MLBPA. They shot down an 84 gm season consisting of mostly 7in doubles that would’ve been strictly Cactus league play. The Grapefruit league teams voted that down too.
The next option was a 72 gm season that had GL teams play each other & CL teams play each other. Only the MLBPA shot that down.
The next option was GL & CL alone but allowing teams to travel to their homes when the schedule supported bus travel. STL could take a plane to CHI & play the WSox, Cubs, & MIL on a trip using bus travel. Only the MLBPA shot that down.
So we have more rigid protocols & Toronto traveling back & forth from MIami in a 60 gm schedule mainly because of the MLBPA.
Science wise, Manfred’s 1st option made the most sense. Not only did AZ have far fewer cases than FL, but CL sites were on avg much younger than GL ones. That means better ventilation systems especially with the design needed for AZ’s dry/high heat. For the same reason bus travel is safer than air travel. You can ventilate a bus much easier than a plane flying 30,000 ft.
I give Manfred high marks on what he wanted vs what we got in the end.
The fact we got post season seeding rules with little to no understanding that it was inevitable teams would not complete the same number of games makes Manfred one
of the dumbest “baseball” commish’s in league history.
The fact that he suggested the league look at winning %’s over actual records last week only compounds his stupidity of the game. He should have said the league will look at wins over winning % when teams struggle to play 50 gms let alone 60.
While STL reaches 13 gms played after this Cubs series, PIt & Cin will be stuck on 18 or 19. Meanwhile the WSox will have played 25.
Right now the Cards are in 2nd because they are 2-1 in the div vs the 6-7 Brewers. The league MUST look at wins. The Brewers have 10 the Cards have 4.