For second straight opening day, Nationals lose player(s) to positive COVID-19 test


One Washington Nationals player has tested positive for COVID-19, general manager Mike Rizzo announced on Wednesday. Five others within the organization -- four players and one staff member -- were in close contact with the person that tested positive, RIzzo told reporters, including Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic.

Rizzo hinted that roster moves will be necessary in advance of their Opening Day matchup against the Mets, scheduled for 7:09 p.m. ET on Thursday in Washington, D.C. That's because those five players will be in quarantine. The player testing positive, per MLB health and safety protocols for 2021, must remain in quarantine for at least 10 days and then be cleared by baseball's joint COVID-19 committee and the team physician following a cardiac examination. As of yet, the players in question have not been named.

Rizzo did not identify any of the six members of the organization who are involved.

"We'll have some roster decisions to make depending on how this all shakes out before Opening Day," Rizzo said. "This is just a small blip on our radar screen. We're going to handle it and take it in stride."

The Nationals -- who had planned to have a workout at their stadium on Wednesday before it was called off because of rain -- did not have a single player test positive during their six weeks of spring training camp in West Palm Beach, Florida. The team has not yet been vaccinated.

Rizzo said he has received one shot of the vaccine and will advise players to get it as soon as they are eligible but will leave the decision up to them.

Thursday's starting pitcher, Max Scherzer, was not on the team flight and traveled separately with his family. He said having dealt with the pandemic last season has the team more prepared for events like what happened Wednesday.

"There's less unknowns," Scherzer told MLB on ESPN Radio. "... 2020 was a good learning experience for all of us in knowing that, 'Hey, once it starts going, you kind of know how this ends.' Now we have that information; it's not, I would say, last year when you started hearing a lot more positive tests going around that you just felt like it was way more widespread. Hopefully this one is contained as well as we can because of all of the protocols we have in place now. You know everything that we do, hopefully we contained it and hopefully it's not a big deal."

Rizzo said the team underwent a new round of COVID-19 tests Wednesday, as was previously scheduled -- a combination of rapid tests and MLB-mandated saliva tests. 스포츠토토 He noted that there are players available to be brought in from the club's alternate training site in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

"This is the reason you have 60 good players in the organization, to kind of prepare for these type of ... scenarios,'' he said.

 

 

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