Players’ run of clean virus tests reaches 54 days

Major League Baseball’s postseason bubble succeeded as a COVID-19 defense.

Players extended their run of consecutive days with no new positive virus tests to 54 through Thursday during a time of rising cases in much of the country.

Players did not have positives in 62 of the previous 63 days, the commissioner’s office said Friday. There were no positives among 3,597 samples samples collected in the week.

MLB has collected 172,740 samples, of which 91 — 0.05 percent — have been positive. Fifty-seven of 91 positives have been players, and 21 of the 30 teams have had a person covered by the monitoring test positive.

■ Padres: Righthander Luis Perdomo will miss 2021 after undergoing Tommy

John surgery last week. The 27-year-old, who missed time this season because of forearm inflammation, had a 5.19 ERA and 16 strikeouts over 17⅓ innings in 2020.

Also, left-handed reliever Matt Strahm will undergo surgery to repair a torn patellar tendon in his right knee and is expected to be ready for spring training. The 28-yearold had a 2.61 ERA and 19 strikeouts over 20⅔ innings in 2020.

■ Cardinals: Catcher Yadier Molina, slated to be a free agent five days after the World Series ends, seeks a two-year contract, agent Melvin Roman said. The 38-year-old nine-time All-star and nine-time Gold Glove recipient has spent his entire professional career in the St. Louis organization, including 17 major league seasons.

■ Phillies: Righthander Zack Wheeler underwent a right middle finger resection Oct. 12, the team said. The 30-year-old ripped his right middle fingernail while putting on pants in September. He had a 2.92 ERA over 11 starts in his first season of a five-year, $118 million deal.