Red Sox react to potential MLB shutdown due to COVID-19 outbreaks

Red Sox reliever Matt Barnes, who serves as the team’s representative in the Players Association, knew something like what’s unfolding in baseball right now could happen and he knows as well as anyone that right now is make-or-break time if the season is going to finish.

The Marlins’ outbreak that’s resulted in 18 players testing positive for COVID-19 began a murky week for the future of baseball in 2020, which included 16 postponed games and league commissioner Rob Manfred reportedly telling union chief Tony Clark that he could shut the season down if the sport doesn’t do a better job of managing the coronavirus.

“We are playing,” Manfred said to ESPN’s Karl Ravech on Saturday. “The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable.”

Still, there is real fear and concern for the 60-game season’s possible cancellation less than two weeks in. Barnes said it’s on everyone, not just the players, to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“It’s definitely a difficult situation,” Barnes said. “I think we knew coming into this season that nothing about it was going to be easy and to play 60 games and get through the postseason was going to take a lot of sacrifice on everybody’s part. I think that there are some people who have made some poor decisions off the field and we can always get better at that and get better at what we do on the field.

“Listen, I’m not perfect and I don’t think anybody’s perfect in this entire situation, but if there’s anything that we can be better at, it’s having seen what’s happened in the league and understand that if we don’t do a better job, this very well may get shut down, so it’s on the players, it’s on every organization, it’s on the league. It’s a full collective effort that everybody needs to do a better job and really tighten it up to make sure we can get a 60-game season with the postseason in.”

The likelihood of a season shut-down has seemed to grow. ESPN added to its initial report Saturday, saying networks broadcasting MLB games have been told to be prepared to air alternate programming in the event the season is cancelled. The report said a shutdown could come as early as Monday.

Some though, like Jackie Bradley Jr., seem confident that MLB will find a way to complete the season.

“I think it’s going to last,” Bradley Jr. said. “I think they’re going to make it last. We kind of have to go from there.”

Though they have been affected by COVID-19, the Red Sox have overall had success in following safety protocols and staying free of the virus, especially as they embarked on their first road trip of the season. Four in the organization have tested positive, though the news that Eduardo Rodriguez would be gone for the season was a sobering reminder of the continued need to take this situation seriously. Barnes said he wasn’t aware of any of his teammates considering opting out of the remainder of the season.

In his conversations with the union this week, Barnes said he’s been assured that protocols were being followed after the Marlins outbreak, but he admitted doubt has crept into his mind with news coming day after day of COVID-19 threatening the future of the season.

“I think I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t think about that,” Barnes said. “There’s so many things going on with one team having an outbreak, one team testing positive, you got some things going on here and there. I think everybody’s probably thought, are we going to get shut down? Will it be next week? Will it be two weeks? You really don’t know.”

The situation also opens up the discussion about if it’s right to be playing in the middle of a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 Americans and left millions unemployed. That’s not lost on Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, but he also knows people are looking for baseball for a return to some semblance of normalcy, and he thinks the sport can be a model for how to handle the virus.

So far, that hasn’t been the case, but like Barnes, he stressed the importance of everyone working together to make that possible.

“We’re searching for that new normal and we have a chance to be an example of how we do this, not haphazardly but we can do this with a plan and good protocols and with caution and with a lot of respect for the power of the virus we’re dealing with, and yet find a normal and find a way to function,” Bloom said.

“More than anything, it’s going to take looking out for each other. We are so interdependent right now and I think everybody is aware of that and we have a real chance to show how if we’re mindful of all those things, we can be a positive example for how to carry on through this, but we have to be careful, we have to be cautious, we have to be very aware of the many risks that are out there.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/33flbqa