Red Sox’s Hernandez sidelined after positive test for COVID-19

CLEVELAND — Boston Red Sox infielder Kike Hernandez has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be sidelined indefinitely.

Manager Alex Cora said Hernandez is experiencing symptoms. He’ll be placed on the COVID-19 list along with second baseman Christian Arroyo, who had close contact with Hernandez.

“They’ll be out for an extended period of time,” Cora said Friday night before the Red Sox, who are in the thick of the playoff race, opened a three-game series against the Indians.

Cora would not divulge whether Hernandez is vaccinated.

Cora said infielders Yairo Munoz and Jonathan Arauz will be recalled from Triple-A, and the Red Sox were hoping they would arrive in time to be available Friday night.

With COVID-19 cases on the rise across the country, MLB teams have seen a recent jump in infections as well.

“It’s something we’re dealing with in our world, and outside our world. I don’t want to say that we’re lucky that we’ve been OK throughout the season, but it just happened,” Cora said. “It’s happened to a lot of teams and we’ve got to find a way to keep moving forward and keep playing good baseball.”

Cora said he’s confident the Red Sox have been vigilant in following protocols.

“We’re disciplined,” he said. “In talking to other teams, we’re probably the most aggressive team testing-wise.”

YANKEES KLUBER TO RETURN NEXT WEEK

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Yankees’ current state is the best it’s been all season.

The wins are obviously the main attention grabber; stringing 12 in a row together will do that. But the roster is also nearing its best iteration. Even if playing time has been sparser than he’d like, Luke Voit is back and recently earned American League Player of the Week. Anthony Rizzo and Gary Sanchez are free of the coronavirus, and there’s also another AllStar making his way back to the starting rotation.

“Kluber is back with us,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He will actually pitch for us on Monday.”

Corey Kluber — the twotime Cy Young winner and owner of over 1,500 MLB strikeouts — is the most recent addition to the Yankees’ traveling party. While he won’t pitch in any of the games in Oakland, Kluber has been roaming around the Coliseum and getting his workouts in, also taking time to say hi to Oakland catcher Yan Gomes, who caught him 141 times when the duo played together in Cleveland.

It’s been a long road back for Kluber. He last pitched in the bigs on May 25, one start removed from a nohitter against his former team in Texas. The outing on May 25 lasted just three innings before he was removed with a balky shoulder. This raised obvious red flags, as Kluber threw all of one inning in 2020 before a tear in the same shoulder shut his season down. While he was able to avoid surgery, a season-ending injury to a 34-year-old pitcher’s throwing shoulder is often the first domino toward prolonged ineffectiveness, or worse, retirement.

Not so for Kluber, though. He rebounded magnificently in his first season with the Yankees. Through 10 starts he had a 3.04 ERA and did not allow more than four earned runs in any of his starts. The sinker and cutter artist was doing a masterful job keeping the ball on the ground as well. His ground-ball rate in those first 10 starts before the injury was 46.4% and nine of the 27 outs in his no-hitter came on the ground.