After a COVID-19 scare that saw one player and one staff member test positive while down in Miami, the New York Mets have had no further confirmed cases in the ensuing days and will return to play on Tuesday, Major League Baseball announced.
“Since learning of the two positive tests of New York Mets personnel on Thursday, all subsequent tests — including those taken on Sunday — have been negative,” MLB released in a statement. “As a result, the Mets will host baseball activities at Citi Field today.”
The two positive tests were revealed on Thursday while the Mets were down in Miami playing the Marlins, who had MLB’s first serious outbreak shortly after Opening Weekend when nearly half its active roster contracted the virus.
Those two players are still in Miami along with an additional four members of the organization who stayed behind because of close contact with the impacted parties. Those four people have tested negative and are trying to make their way back to New York, according to Van Wagenen.
The Mets nor MLB has been able to properly pinpoint how the virus infiltrated the team’s ranks.
“We feel good about what we’re doing,” Van Wagenen. “Our players take it seriously and we have a high degree of confidence that this exposure we received didn’t come from a player misbehaving.”
It prompted the postponement of their four-game-series-finale on Thursday against the Marlins and the three-game Subway Series at Citi Field against the Yankees.
The Mets will pick right back up against those very same Marlins in Queens on Tuesday for a four-game series, which features a doubleheader (two seven-inning games) on Tuesday beginning at 5:10 p.m. ET.
They will then head to the Bronx to face the Yankees, where they’ll play a doubleheader this Friday, single game Saturday, and a doubleheader Sunday. A single-game makeup will also be held on Sept. 3 to make up all three missed Citi Field Subway Series games.
“It’s a challenge but this is a year that can’t be about excuses,” Van Wagenen said. “We aren’t the only team that’s faced adversity with scheduling… everyone has been faced with their own injury challenges. We can’t be looking about what we don’t have or what our challenges may be moving forward.”
