Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post reports that Major League Baseball didn’t test players or staff for COVID-19 on two chartered flights from the Dominican Republic. In the time since, multiple players have tested positive for COVID-19. Other players on those flights are isolating.
Twins first baseman Miguel Sanó and several members of the Nationals were among the players on those flights. Sanó as well as an unknown player tested positive during intake testing last week. Juan Soto, Victor Robles, Wander Suero, Fernando Abad, Luis Garcia and Joan Adon are currently isolating in Washington, D.C.
An MLB spokesman said that there were obstacles to overcome, namely that tests are more scarce in the D.R. and governmental restrictions made it difficult to ship saliva samples between countries.
There are a lot of moving parts as Major League Baseball attempts to salvage the 2020 season. Many foreign players traveled back home once the league shut down in March, which complicated things once they returned to the U.S. to play baseball. While it was very predictable, there wasn’t an easy fix. It was either keep the players in or out. However, adding this to MLB’s slipshod job handling testing in the early stages of training camp, there is merited skepticism about the league’s ability to pull off a 60-game season over the next three months.
