BLUE JAYS FACE IMMENSE TEST IN RETURN
MLB’S only team in Canada seemingly has its challenges stack higher daily
If there was any hope that the Toronto Blue Jays would be immune from the MLB mayhem related to the relentless coronavirus opponent, it ended last month when multiple players recorded positive tests at their winter base in Dunedin, Fla.
And did we mention Florida is where the team reconvened last week as the Sunshine State’s positive numbers seemed to set new records each day?
Now there’s another positive test with the team, creating a setback that’s left as many as a dozen players in Dunedin as the team gets to work at the Rogers Centre.
A source confirmed on Monday that several players did not board the Sunday night charter from Florida to Toronto after one player tested positive for the virus.
The other players were held back because they had been in regular contact with the individual who failed his test.
This isn’t a surprise in the slightest. Many of the training camps going — minus those shut down on Monday because of shoddy timing on the testing — are adding positive results almost daily. And the Jays themselves boldly said they expected more positives after the outbreak in June.
But a dozen? That was the number reported by USA Today baseball columnist Bob Nightengale, confirming the magnitude of the Jays’ challenge.
The COVID-19 crisis already had the Toronto club shrouded in the uncertainty of not even having a confirmed home stadium for a season that’s due to begin in a little more than two weeks. And then there are border and quarantine issues that the other 29 teams don’t have to deal with.
With all those circumstances in mind, the challenges facing baseball’s only Canadian team seem to be stacking higher by the day.
Though the team won’t comment on the situation, according to the Jays’ protocol for gaining clearance to hold camp in Canada, the players who have been held back will remain in Florida until they record two consecutive negative tests.
Several players across MLB have publicly acknowledged their COVID-19 positives, but the Jays’ policy is that they won’t reveal the names of players involved unless they agree to it.
The absentees may become somewhat apparent once workouts are open to the media. Unlike the majority of MLB teams, the Jays closed the Rogers Centre to reporters Monday and they’re expected to do the same Tuesday.
After arriving in downtown Toronto late Sunday — checking into the quarantined area of the Marriott hotel attached to Rogers Centre — the Jays were on the field the following morning with another workout taking place in the afternoon. Among those we knew to be participating was the team’s top pitching prospect, Nate Pearson. The hard-throwing right-hander posted a picture to his Instagram account with the caption “we made it.”
It remains to be seen when the rest of the Jays players join their teammates in what has already become a challenging training camp for the American League club. With camps allowed to begin this past Friday, the Jays weren’t given clearance to cross the Canada-u.s. border until the previous day and had to pass intake testing before getting charter flight plans in place.
Because of the strict quarantine protocol the Jays proposed to follow to gain clearance from Canadian government and medical authorities, the players who remain in Florida must first record two negative tests. Once that green light is achieved, the team will have to fly those players by charter to keep the isolation precautions in place.
The Jays weren’t the only MLB team to experience difficulties on Monday with both 2019
World Series participants — the reigning champion Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros — cancelling on-field activities because of a delay in receiving testing results.
Those developments prompted a late afternoon statement from the league saying that despite some delays in getting the results from a lab in Utah, 95 per cent of the initial round of tests has been completed.
“We appreciate the great co-operation from the players as well as the hard work of the clubs under these challenging circumstances,” the league said in a statement. “The process has not been without unforeseen difficulties, which are being addressed with the service providers that are essential to the execution of the protocol.”
Those circumstances didn’t sit well with some teams, as Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo told reporters in Washington.
“We will not sacrifice the health and safety of our players, staff and their families,” Rizzo said. “Without accurate and timely testing, it is simply not safe for us to continue with summer camp.”
And therein lies one of the great challenges for MLB teams: the necessity of safety precautions squaring off with the urgency of a too-short training period leading to an abbreviated season. Which brings us back to a Jays team without a true home and with potentially close to a fifth of its 60-man roster absent for who knows how long.
The players who are here will continue to work on the field, while behind the scenes the front office will work to secure the Rogers Centre for its 30 regular-season home dates. That process was never going to be an easy one and it’s hard to imagine it not getting more complicated by the day, given the spreading footprint the COVID-19 crisis is inflicting on the sport.