Two Nationals The players tested positive for COVID-19 during the team’s initial admissions test program, manager Davey Martinez revealed today.
The club has not publicly identified the names of the two players and can only do so with the permission of the players, according to Major League Baseball protocols this season. No player can perform at Nationals Park before admission test results are returned, so none of the players who tested positive have been to the stadium yet and have contacted their peers or staff members. .
The 58 players participating in the summer training underwent the admission tests during the last week. The vast majority of the results of those tests have returned, but a handful, mainly Latin American players who traveled to Washington from long distances, are still waiting for results.
” Everyone assumed that everyone (who) underwent testing on Wednesday. That was not the case for us, “Martinez said.” We still have guys out there who came in late and we are still waiting for the results … Hopefully we will get all of these results tomorrow and the guys will start arriving and preparing to exercise. “
Because training runs throughout the day, from 7:45 am to 5:30 pm, only a few players are on the field at a time. And with members of the media restricted to two to three hour access windows to the press box, it has not been possible to identify all the players who have been authorized to participate yet.
The news is not necessarily unexpected. MLB announced Friday that 38 of 3,185 total samples collected during the mandatory intake screen tested positive. Nineteen different clubs had one or more people who tested positive for admission.
That made it no less worrisome to team officials.
“It definitely hurts,” said Martinez. “One, you think of the player. Two, you think if they have families, if they have children, and you hope that all are well. And then I hope they become asymptomatic and don’t get the virus that many people did get sick. Only time will tell when they contract this virus. It attacks everyone differently, as we all know. For me, I hope they come out well and come back to us as soon as possible. “
Players and staff who test positive can only return to camp once they have been symptom free for 72 hours and then test negative twice within 24 hours.
Once players are cleared to participate in the camp, they undergo testing every other day. The deadline for testing results for MLB facilities in Utah is supposed to be 24 hours, but the Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle He said today that he has not yet received the results of the test he carried out on Friday. You already took your next required test this morning, before learning the results of your last test.
“So we have to clean that up, right?” Doolittle said. “That’s one thing that makes me a little nervous.”
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