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Report: Reds Player Tests Positive for COVID-19; Saturday Game Likely Postponed
August 15, 2020
An unnamed Cincinnati Reds player has tested positive for COVID-19, per Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and The Athletic.
The status of Cincinnati's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday at 6:10 p.m. ET is currently unknown, but ESPN's Jeff Passan reported it's "likely" to be postponed.
The Reds beat the Pirates 8-1 on Friday in Cincinnati. They are currently scheduled to host the Pirates on Saturday and Sunday before traveling to Kansas City for a two-game series with the Kansas City Royals beginning Tuesday.
Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette confirmed Rosenthal's report and said contact tracing is underway following the positive test.
As Jon Heyman of MLB Network and WFAN Sports Radio noted, all 30 teams were scheduled to play Saturday for the first time since Sunday, July 26, but that seems unlikely at this juncture.
Passan also provided this note: "People around baseball had been hopeful that with cases limited in the last two weeks to Cardinals players and staff that St. Louis’ return would signal some normalcy. With the positive COVID case on Cincinnati, as Ken Rosenthal first reported, that clearly isn’t the case yet."
COVID-19 outbreaks on the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals forced both of those teams to stay sidelined for significant portions of the season.
Miami is back in action and playing catch-up to the rest of the league. The 9-4 Marlins have played 13 contests now but are still eight behind some teams with a month-and-a-half left in the regular season.
The 2-3 Cardinals will have an even bigger mountain to climb: They were only able to play five games this year but will attempt to play 53 games in 44 days, including 11 doubleheaders.
Teams that the Marlins and Cardinals were scheduled to face are slightly behind others as well, although the newly adopted seven-inning doubleheader rule has allowed franchises to play games in a quicker fashion.
MLB is attempting to complete a 60-game regular season before a 16-team postseason amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused over 20.73 million confirmed cases and 751,000 deaths worldwide, per the World Health Organization.
The United States has had over 5.1 million cases and 164,800 deaths, including 55,907 confirmed cases on Friday.