THE BUBBLE BURSTS
TURNER POSITIVE COVID TEST REVEALED DURING MLB’S FINAL GAME /
ARLINGTON, Texas — After all the hoops Major League Baseball jumped through to get to this marvelous point, it couldn’t quite stick the landing.
2020 continues to be a foe for the ages.
Just moments after the Dodgers defeated the Rays on Tuesday night, 3-1 in World Series Game 6 at Globe Life Field, securing their first title in 32 years, the game’s broadcaster Fox reported that veteran Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner, the former Met, left the contest after the seventh inning when he tested positive for the coronavirus.
And suddenly Kevin Cash’s decision to lift a dominant Blake Snell hardly seemed so controversial after all.
Why wasn’t the game immediately put on ice upon learning this news? Why were players and bubbled family members, many not wearing masks, allowed to celebrate on the field after the game? If they had paused, or if the Rays had come back to win this game, would there have been a multi-day break out of an abundance of caution (to revive a popular phrase from the regular season) before resuming action?
Commissioner Rob Manfred, who stood on the field and presented his trophy to Dodgers owner Mark Walter, answered one question from Fox reporter Tom Verducci about Turner but didn’t participate in a Zoom news conference afterwards, leaving many unanswered queries. Leaving an aftermath that will feature as much concern as celebration for the Dodgers.
As Turner quickly tweeted, “I feel great, no symptoms at all,” his fellow Dodgers voiced heartbreak that their beloved teammate couldn’t be there for Julio Urias’ series-ending strikeout of Willy Adames.
“That hurts,” Dodgers manager
Dave Roberts said.
“To have that happen to a guy like that, a dude that reinvented himself when he came here, what he meant to this franchise, to take that away from him it’s gutwrenching,” World Series Most Valuable Player Corey Seager said. “If I could switch places with him, I would. ... That’s just not right. That doesn’t sit well with me.”
The entire situation shouldn’t sit well with folks. As The Post’s Joel Sherman reported, MLB learned during the second inning Tuesday that Turner’s coronavirus test from Monday had come back inconclusive. MLB reacted to that by asking its Utah laboratory to run Turner’s tests for both Monday and Tuesday, and the latter came back positive. MLB swiftly notified Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to get Turner out of the game; Edwin Rios took over third base for the top of the eighth.
Why not call the game right then and there and pick up when the coast is clear? MLB had a precedent at its disposal, a Reds game in which center fielder Nick Senzel set off similar alarms and left early (apparently Aug. 7 at Milwaukee) as the game continued. Why that’s a medically sound process, I’d love to know; the Reds didn’t play from Aug. 15-18 when a player tested positive.
And even if you concede to that precedent, why risk further spread by letting the Dodgers congregate, hug and pose for photos afterward? Many photos that hit social media featured a maskless Turner on the field, smiling, which would be a disastrous optic. When I asked Mookie Betts whether he saw Turner on the field, he halted and said, a couple of times, “He’s part of the team. He’s part of the team.”
ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Dodgers planned to get rapid tests upon returning to their hotel Tuesday night, their travel plans to be determined. It’s all very fluid. It’s all highly unfortunate.
MLB, the team officials and the players did nothing less than amazing work to get here. But we’ve learned, so painfully, that you can’t let up against this disease. Maybe MLB did everything right here. Definitely, we leave this season of COVID thinking just as much about COVID as the season.