Washington Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said a player tested positive for COVID-19, and four teammates and a staff member have been quarantined after contact tracing on the eve of the regular season’s start. Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Associated Press, file
WASHINGTON — A Washington Nationals player tested positive for COVID-19, and four teammates and a staff member have been quarantined after contact tracing on the eve of the regular season’s start, general manager Mike Rizzo said Wednesday.
Rizzo did not identify any of the six members of the organization who are involved.
“We’re still in the process of finding out exactly what their status is,” Rizzo said. “They’re certainly out for tomorrow’s game.”
The 2019 World Series champions – who finished tied for last in the NL East in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season – are scheduled to host the New York Mets on Thursday night, with Max Scherzer facing Jacob deGrom in a matchup between pitchers who own a total of five Cy Young Awards.
“We will certainly have some roster decisions to make, depending on how this all shakes out,” Rizzo said in a video conference with the media.
The positive result came from a test conducted Monday, while the Nationals were still in Florida for spring training. Word of the test came a little after 1 a.m. Wednesday, after the team already had traveled home to the nation’s capital, Rizzo said.
The flight home was where there was close contact between the five who are quarantining and the player who tested positive.
Scherzer said he was not on that team flight and traveled separately with his family.
The Nationals – who had planned to have a workout at their stadium on Wednesday, before it was called off because of rain – did not have a single player test positive during their six weeks of spring training camp in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Rizzo said the team underwent a new round of COVID-19 tests Wednesday, as was previously scheduled – a combination of rapid tests and MLB-mandated saliva tests.
“We’re ready for the long haul. This is just a small blip on our radar screen. We’re going to handle it and take it in stride,” Rizzo said, noting there are players available to be brought in from the club’s alternative training site in Fredericksburg, Virginia. “This is the reason you have 60 good players in the organization, to kind of prepare for these type of … scenarios.”
INDIANS: While moving forward with a plan to change their name, the Cleveland Indians said they will not permit fans inside Progressive Field wearing Native American headdresses or face paint.
The team announced the fan dress policy for the 2021 season on Wednesday in advance of Monday’s home opener against Detroit.
The team’s new policy states fans can be ejected or denied entrance for disorderly, unruly or disruptive conduct that includes “headdresses and face paint styled in a way that references or appropriates American Indian cultures and traditions. Inappropriate or offensive images, words, dress or face paint must be covered or removed, and failure to do so may constitute grounds for ejection or refusal of admission.”
The Kansas City Chiefs announced a similar ban of headdresses at Arrowhead Stadium last year.
Cleveland fans will still be allowed to wear caps and clothing featuring Chief Wahoo, the team’s contentious mascot. The team removed the smiling, red-faced Wahoo caricature from its game jerseys and caps two years ago but still sells merchandise with its image.
The Indians said earlier this year that they are changing their name for the first time since 1915, joining a nationwide movement to ban racist symbols and slogans. The name change will not take effect until the 2022 season at the earliest.
In December, owner Paul Dolan told The Associated Press that the team’s new name “will not be a name that has Native American themes or connotations to it.”
BLUE JAYS: George Springer’s debut will be delayed while he starts the season on the injured list with a strained oblique muscle.
Springer left the Houston Astros to sign a $150 million, six-year contract with the Blue Jays.
The 2017 World Series MVP with Houston was scratched from a game on March 9 because of tightness in his abdominal muscles and did not play in any exhibitions after March 21.
ROYALS: Oft-injured Royals shortstop Adalberto Mondesi will begin the season on the injured list with a right oblique strain, leaving Kansas City without one of its most exciting players when it opens the season against the Texas Rangers on Thursday.
Mondesi was put on the injured list Wednesday retroactive to the previous day. Nicky Lopez was recalled from the club’s alternate training site in Arkansas after he was sent there following a poor spring training at the plate. Mondesi hit .256 with a league-leading 24 stolen bases in 59 games during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Lopez was competing for the second base job but is now likely to share shortstop duties with Hanser Alberto, who made the Opening Day roster after joining the Royals as a non-roster invitee for spring. Alberto and Whit Merrifield are expected to get the bulk of playing time at second, with Merrifield also spending time in the outfield.
UMPIRE ANGEL Hernández lost his lawsuit against Major League Baseball alleging racial discrimination.
The Cuba-born Hernández sued in 2017 in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, a case later moved to New York. Hired as a big league umpire in 1993, he alleged he was discriminated against because he had not been assigned to the World Series since 2005 and had been passed over for crew chief. Hernández was made an interim crew chief last July at the start of the pandemic-delayed shortened season after a dozen umps decided to sit out.
“The court concludes that no reasonable juror could find that MLB’s stated explanation is a pretext for discriminatory motive,” U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken wrote Wednesday in granting MLB’s motion for a summary judgment. Oetken wrote that MLB picking Alfonso Márquez to work the World Series in 2011 and 2015 was “a promotion that seemingly would not have been made were MLB discriminating on the basis of race or national identity.”
UP FOR AUCTION: A bat Lou Gehrig used late in his career and the original home plate from Yankee Stadium when it opened in 1923 are among the items up for bidding in an online auction this week.
SCP Auctions said the Gehrig bat dates to 1938, his next-to-last season in the majors. It came from the collection of Yankees Hall of Fame teammate Earle Combs’ family. The home plate is from the original Yankee Stadium and the year the team won its first World Series championship. The Yankees previously played at the Polo Grounds, the home of the New York Giants.
The bidding ends Saturday.
MOOKIE BETTS put an exclamation point on the exhibition season in the final spring training game of the year, hitting two home runs Tuesday night as the Dodgers beat the Los Angeles Angels 6-4.
The star outfielder had only one RBI this spring before connecting for his first two homers. He led off the bottom the first inning at Dodger Stadium with a drive beyond the leap of Angels center fielder Mike Trout, then connected again the fourth.
CUBS: The Chicago Cubs agreed to a one-year deal with catcher Tony Wolters and designated right-hander James Norwood for assignment.
Wolters, who figures to back up Willson Contreras, signed a minor league deal with Pittsburgh last month and was released on March 29. He is a career .238 hitter with seven home runs and 123 RBI over five seasons with the Colorado Rockies.
Norwood was 0-2 with a 4.50 ERA over 23 relief appearances for Chicago from 2018 to 2020. The Cubs open at home against Pittsburgh on Thursday.
MARINERS: The Seattle Mariners placed center fielder Kyle Lewis on the 10-day injured list due to a bone bruise in his right knee, sidelining the reigning American League Rookie of the Year for Opening Day.
Lewis missed the final week of spring training after crashing into the wall during an exhibition game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 22. The bruise didn’t seem significant at first but didn’t respond to treatment as quickly as the Mariners hoped.
YANKEES: Reliever Lucas Luetge has made the Opening-Day roster and is returning to the major leagues for the first time since 2015.
New York selected him to the major league roster from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and agreed to a contract paying $600,000 while in the major leagues and $180,000 while in the minors.
The 34-year-old left-hander had a 1.74 ERA in nine spring training appearances. He allowed his only runs on a pair of solo homers by Toronto’s Teoscar Hernandez and Kevin Smith on March 21. He gave up eight hits in 10 1/3 innings with 18 strikeouts and two walks.
New York had an opening for a left-hander while Zack Britton recovers from surgery on March 15 to remove a bone chip in his pitching elbow and Justin Wilson builds arm strength after being sidelined during spring training by shoulder soreness.
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