
Despite reaching the 85% vaccinated threshold seemingly forever ago, the Yankees are once again dealing with a mass COVID scare in 2021. The league postponed tonight’s game against the Red Sox as a result. We don’t know when they’ll play the game, nor do we know the status of the rest of the weekend’s slate. Fun! It would make sense to assume a double-header would come in the near future, but we can’t be so sure, unfortunately. It’s a complicated situation! Let’s break it down.
First, the outbreak itself. Six Yankees are currently in COVID protocol, per Brian Cashman. That includes three players who have tested positive and three cases that are pending. All of them are players. Here’s the breakdown, given what we know right now:
- Confirmed Positives: Jonathan Loaisiga, Nestor Cortes Jr., Wandy Peralta
- Cases Pending: Aaron Judge, Kyle Higashioka, and Gio Urshela
The good news is that all of the players are asymptomatic, which is the most important issue. Most of the players are vaccinated, according to Brian Cashman. (That includes all three positive cases.) Some players got the J&J shot; others an mRNA. Loaisiga, who tested positive a week or so ago, is quarantining in Houston. There are obviously roster implications here. We won’t know them until we really know who is positive and who isn’t. We’ll have more on that once we, well, know more about that.
The bad news is, well, basically everything else. Judge was obviously at the All-Star game this week, which means that the rest of the league now needs to be on notice. This significantly complicates the contact tracing due to the nature of the ASG. Remember, every team is represented at the game. This could become a hairy situation very quickly, particularly for AL clubs.
In fact, it already is for Boston. The team sent five players to Denver, not all of whom are vaccinated. Obviously, that means that this could easily spread to their clubhouse – which has not yet met the 85% vaccinated threshold, either. It’s not clear what the next steps are, or when the Yankees will play again. We’ll see, I guess.
This definitely makes MLB look bad, though. There was not a mask in sight – which I didn’t notice, honestly, but it looks bad in hindsight. It was naive of me, but I sort of just expected that everyone was vaccinated! That was dumb of me. Now, MLB might have an outbreak on its hands. It’s unbelievable.
Anyway, here is some additional information on the Yankees:
- Gleyber Torres was a false positive from the team’s earlier COVID scare in 2021.
- The Yankees placed Hoy-Jun Park on the taxi squad.
- Zack Britton is back! The Yanks re-instated him earlier today. That is definitely good news.
- They also called up Trey Amburgey, who Derek profiled earlier today. Good for him. He’s earned it.
There will be more to come from all of this, of course. We’ll keep you posted on scheduling, test results, and the roster implications as we learn more. Sigh. The nightmare season continues, eh?