Gimenez, Nido sidelined along with 2 coaches

The Mets returned to Citi Field on Tuesday to play baseball again after a five-day COVID-19 scare, but did so with two players and two coaches missing.

Catcher Tomas Nido, infielder Andres Gimenez, third base coach Gary DiSarcina and bench coach Hensley Meulens were not on site for “undisclosed reasons,” manager Luis Rojas said. The Mets previously announced that two members of the organization, a player and a coach, had tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday in Miami. But they have not revealed the identity of those two, or who may have come into close contact with them. Rojas said Tuesday that all tests since have continued to come back negative.

“We’ve learned a lot of things this season, this year overall, in baseball and life,” Rojas said before a doubleheader against the Marlins. “One of the things we’ve learned the most is this protocol so we can be really good at it when something like this challenges us. The last few days, it’s been part of that. Just a lot of quarantining, staying at home and watching games and coming to the ballpark to get tested. We’re glad we got through it and we’re fortunate it was contained. The way we worked following this protocol, it’s paid off. It could have been different.”

Nido and Gimenez were placed on the injured list. To replace them, the Mets added catcher Patrick Mazeika and outfielder Juan Lagares to the roster. Catcher Ali Sanchez was also called up as the 29th man for Tuesday’s twin bill.

To make up for the missing coaches, Tony DeFrancesco moved from coaching first base to third base, Brian Schneider added bench coach to his quality control duties and Kevin Boles joined the staff to serve as the first base coach.

“They’re not going to be with the team for an indefinite amount of time,” Rojas said of DiSarcina and Meulens.

The Mets had won three straight games and their bats had come alive before COVID-19 shut them down on Thursday, making their quarantine period “frustrating” and “deflating,” Michael Conforto said. The right fielder joked with teammates that it was just the All-Star break and they had missed the cut to be All-Stars. But ultimately he was relieved they seem to have avoided an outbreak like the one their opponent Tuesday had in late July, which reached 18 players and two coaches on the Marlins.