Thursday night’s Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees game, which was set to air nationally on ESPN, has been postponed following positive COVID-19 tests within the Yankees’ organization. That game was the only MLB game scheduled Thursday in the return from the All-Star break. It was also going to be the start of a four-game series; it’s unclear as of yet if further games will be affected. (If they do, that has big national TV implications, as Friday is set to be a MLB Network showcase game, Saturday is set to air nationally on Fox, and Sunday is set to air nationally on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.) Here’s the Yankees’ release on this:
Following positive COVID-19 tests within the New York Yankees organization, Thursday night’s game between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium has been postponed to allow for continued testing and contact tracing. Major League Baseball will continue to provide scheduling updates as available.
Here’s more from MLB.com Yankees’ beat writer Bryan Hoch on comments from Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman:
Cashman expects the three players who had multiple positive rapid tests will come back positive in lab testing
— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) July 15, 2021
Cashman said most but not all of the six players have been vaccinated.
— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) July 15, 2021
The decision to postpone today’s game was made by the Commissioner’s Office. Brian Cashman said it is too soon to know what this means for the rest of the weekend.
— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) July 15, 2021
Lindsay Adler of The Athletic noted that Cashman also said the positive-testing players are doing okay for the moment, which does add to the calls for vaccination as a preventative measure against serious outcomes:
Good news from Brian Cashman: “As of right now, everybody is ok.”
— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) July 15, 2021
And she noted that Cashman said the confirmed positives were already vaccinated.
The three confirmed positive cases — Jonathan Loaisiga, Nestor Cortes, and Wandy Peralta — were all vaccinated, Brian Cashman said. Two J&J, one mRNA.
— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) July 15, 2021
Here are some more updates on this, from Jared Diamond of The Wall Street Journal and Buster Olney and Marly Rivera of ESPN:
https://twitter.com/jareddiamond/status/1415791897478565894
https://twitter.com/MarlyRiveraESPN/status/1415790274073272330
The three other Yankees position players who are in COVID-19 protocol are Aaron Judge, Kyle Higashioka, and Gio Urshela. Because Judge was at the All-Star Game with other players, this has triggered contact tracing questions for the Red Sox players (and presumably others).
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 15, 2021
We’ll see what this means for the rest of this Red Sox-Yankees series. But for now, this certainly sabotaged MLB’s plan of coming back from the All-Star Break with a showcase national game. And it took away some desirable programming from ESPN along the way.
