Jon Heyman of MLB.com is reporting this morning that all of the Cincinnati Reds players who were tested on Saturday tested negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. That report comes about 33 hours after the first report that a player in the organization tested positive earlier in the week, with the result from that test coming in on Friday night, leading to the postponement of both Saturday and Sunday’s games between Cincinnati and the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Hear all Reds players tested yesterday were negative, boding well for their return next week
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 16, 2020
Now, if you will excuse the strange wording above, this report isn’t entirely clear if every single Reds player was tested or not. The assumption here is that they were, because why on Earth would every player not be tested given the situation? But, the tweet specifically says all Reds players tested yesterday were negative and that most certainly could be different than “all players tested negative yesterday”. Perhaps it’s simply wasn’t the greatest choice of words by Heyman here.
Update: 5:25pm ET
Bobby Nightengale of The Cincinnati Enquirer has provided clarification on the Jon Heyman tweet, noting that no ADDITIONAL tests came back positive.
The #Reds had 1 player test positive for COVID-19 on Friday. There were no additional positive tests on Saturday, per source.
The Cardinals situation showed it can take days for others who were exposed to test positive, so not surprising MLB is being cautious. https://t.co/A69pow4wNf
— Bobby Nightengale (@nightengalejr) August 16, 2020
As Nightengale notes in both the St. Louis Cardinals situation, as well as the Miami Marlins situation, it took time after the initial positive test before others on the team began to also start testing positive. In the Cardinals case, a coach tested positive nearly two weeks after their initial outbreak began. It’s possible he contracted the virus from somewhere else along the way, of course, but given that we know he was exposed to multiple people who had it with the team, that seems unlikely to be the case.
When the team will play next is still up in the air. The Philadelphia Phillies, who never had a player test positive, but were on the field with the Marlins, didn’t return to the diamond for a week as they continued to test negative on a daily basis. The Reds next series was originally scheduled to begin on Tuesday against Kansas City, in Kansas City. That series has not yet been postponed.
Reading this article sounds like no DH on Monday.
Did you hear if any of the Pirates players where tested.
(note, I would assume all of the Reds players and coaches where tested.)
Did they retest the 1 player?
the Pirates were all negative per the Pirates beat writer.
Which, of course, they would be if their first exposure would have been on Friday in the baseball game. Always better to have no positives than the alternative, but in theory, if a Pirate were to have first been exposed on Friday, there’s almost no way they’d have tested positive on Saturday even if they did actually get it on Friday. Let’s just hope no one else got it.
It sure seems like Ohio is leading the league in false positive ages of Covid. From the Governor to Matt Davidson, to (hopefully) whomever tested positive on Friday.
That is the question here too — not only is it a bit inclear if ALL players were tested, it is also unclear if the player who tested positive was retested. One can only hope that is a basic first step here, but we shall see.
There are COVID-19 tests and then again there are other COVID-19 tests.
From what we know, Gov DeWine tested positive on a quick turnaround test meant to clear folks for immediate VIP access (i.e. POTUS). The test is known to have a high false positive rate which is considered acceptable for the situation in which he was tested because the key criteria are the result needs to be available almost on demand and making certain no one who is possibly infected gets through.
My recollection is that it was reported that Matt Davidson’s positive test also originated from a privately administered quick assessment test of some type and not the official MLB test. When he was given the MLB test, he came back negative.
In the current situation, the player involved came back positive on an MLB sanctioned test. MLB is going to be very cautious moving forward from it.
Since the report didn’t say “all Reds except for the unidentified positive player” my take is that they tested everybody, including said player. If they do that again at the appropriate interval today and the Pirates agree, we possibly see a DH game on Monday to avoid further delays?
I totally get the caution and the lack of named people. We’re working with as much information as we have.
I honestly don’t know what they’d have to do to get to play a doubleheader on Monday. Personally, I think it would feel a bit forced simply because they are going to be playing Pittsburgh again (September 4-6 in Pittsburgh, 14-16th in Cincinnati), and they both have an off day on Monday the 7th.
But, they don’t even ask me for my opinions on anything, so….. who knows.
Funny, same here.
I think if they can fit in the DH, do it. There’s simply no way to know what future games might get canceled.
I think the league is going to have to figure out the playoff criteria.
It might be the first and second place teams in each divisions plus each playoff team had to have won at least 25 games (that would be a plus .500 record for 80% of the scheduled season). I know no one wants to create the incentive for teams or players to play sick. But allowing a 20% should be a good compromise for that.
Updated at 11:20am with a little more information from a Pirates beat writer on a possible Monday doubleheader
Possible is all we can ask for at the moment. We’ll know soon enough. All we can count on is no game this afternoon, and that’s a prudent step to take given the hot messes we’ve seen elsewhere.
Even if it’s a single game with the DH coming later, that’s fine.
I believe what we will see that IF the double header proceeds on Monday the said player in question won’t be in uniform and on the field at all. The player also will not make the trip to KC, pending further testing. If those tests come back negative, the player will rejoin the team in STL. It will be about what Davidson went through, but a little quicker turnaround.
Now will the Reds use the covid IL or not this time will be the question, or will they play with a roster that is a man short for 4 games?
Pondering this since the cancellation announcement …
I have to think somewhere in the “bowels of MLB” there is serious talk of a college baseball like tournament held in “bubbles” with extremely strict rules to be followed. A couple more of the bonehead moves like the Cardinals did, a couple more of the unforeseen outbreaks like the Marlins had, and continued press toward DH games on days yet-to-be-named make me think there’s still a strong chance we go into a hard shutdown and don’t finish the planned 60-game season.
Pure speculation on my part (that is some of what we do on this fan site, right?) but that’s the kind of contingency planning you would expect. That puts all eyes on the NHL and NBA who are doing almost that exact thing right now.
There has been talk among “national” writers on Twitter that MLB is looking at bubble sites for the playoffs.
It is only reasonable to assume given the experiences if NBA and NHL, MLB could at some point shut down the season, events meriting, then reopen it later a playoff tournament in a bubble environment. This is why I have been saying it is so important to win not only as many games as possible but also win games as quickly as possible to assure being in any such playoff setup.
In the comments above you distinguished the quick test and the MLB test. How do we know which is involved here? If a positive is confirmed then aren’t the Reds (and Bucs, and umps, and so on . . .) forced into a incubation period Q?
Afraid this could be a 10-day break unless they bring up the Prasco squad en masse.
There’s no precedent at all that they (MLB) would force a team to just call up the entire alternate site team to play.
My presumption is that it was an MLB sanctioned test because apparently the results became known during a game the player had participated in or was at least dressed and in the clubhouse. Sources indicate the turnaround time on these tests is typically about 36 hours.
If the player went for a private test, the team would have certainly held him out and isolated him from other players pending results, presuming the team knew of the test.
If they didn’t the team didn’t know that would be a violation of the self reporting protocols on its own.
This is obviously good news for all involved. Hopeful the lone positive test remains a singleton and turns out to be a false positive.
The Reds should dominate 7 inning games. They should continue to leak false positive COVID tests to force more double headers.
Just saw that on MLB Trade Rumors. Probably the smart thing to do. Neither organization wants to take the risk. Let’s just hope the Tuesday game in KC happens.
I am really starting to question the value of doing these daily screening coronavirus rapid tests. Just seems like there are too many false positives and false negatives to base cancelling games. I think other modalities may work better for screening such as daily physical exams with full vitals. Daily bloodwork with cbc, liver enzymes, c- reactive protein levels. ( all which can be done by fingerstick now). This just seems a more effective way to evaluate if a player indeed has the virus or not. These screening tests are really meant to help the clinician in making a clinical diagnosis. They really aren’t meant to give a” yes” or ” no” answer regarding a diagnosis.
None of the tests were of the rapid test kind. Not the Reds positive from Friday, and not the resulting negatives from everyone else on Saturday.