From the start, it was thought that imposing slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s days as a full-time third baseman would not last long, but the experiment appears to be over far sooner than expected. Read More
Blue Jays end Vladimir Guerrero third baseman experiment early — Toronto Sun
Kopech last pitched in 2018, missing all of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Michael Kopech has opted out of the 2020 season — HardballTalk | NBC Sports
Posey and his wife recently adopted twins who were born prematurely and who are in the NICU.
Buster Posey has opted out of the 2020 season — HardballTalk | NBC Sports
SAN FRANCISCO — With exactly two weeks until the Giants are scheduled to open the 2020 season at Dodger Stadium, Buster Posey was absent for a second day and missed a practice for the third time since the club began summer workouts at Oracle Park. Manager Gabe Kapler said Posey is dealing with a personal…
SF Giants: Posey still weighing decision to play, Hamilton, García placed on injured list for ‘medical reasons’ — Times-Standard
matter away from the field and still weighing the option of sitting out the season due to concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic.
“He’s dealing with a personal decision and a personal issue right now and I just really want that to be his time to work on that,” Kapler said.
Kapler has reiterated the Giants are in no rush for Posey or any other players potentially considering sitting out the season to come to a final decision.
After umpire Joe West doubled down on some controversial comments about COVID-19, the MLB umpires’ union released a statement on Thursday.
MLBUA releases statement regarding Joe West’s COVID-19 comments — HardballTalk | NBC Sports
By Bill BaerJul 9, 2020, 4:05 PM EDT5 Comments
The Major League Baseball Umpires Association (MLBUA) released a statement on Thursday, addressing recent comments made about COVID-19 by umpire Joe West. The statement reads:
“Recent public comments about the current Coronavirus pandemic do not in any way reflect the position of the Major League Baseball Umpires Association.
“Our nation, and the world, has suffered greatly from this deadly virus. In the midst of continued suffering umpires are attempting to do our part to bring the great game of baseball back onto the field and into the homes of fans everywhere.
“The MLBUA fully supports the health and safety protocols agreed to by MLB and the MLBPA, and we have agreed to make dramatic changes to our usual working conditions in an effort to navigate this unprecedented season.
“The health of everyone involved in making this season happen is of utmost importance to the MLBUA — ourselves and our families, team personnel and their families, MLB office personnel and their families, as well as countless other “behind the scenes” people that truly make the game what it is. It is an awesome responsibility and one we do not take lightly.
“Regardless of any umpire’s personal views, when we report for a resumed spring training and 2020 season, we will conduct ourselves as professionals and in accordance with the health and safety protocols.
“We look forward to being back on the field soon to play our small role in providing the healing power of baseball to the fans of this wonderful game.”
West, 67, said on Tuesday that while he is someone considered “high risk” during the pandemic, he plans to go to work. He also expressed skepticism about the coronavirus data, saying, “I don’t believe in my heart that all these deaths have been from the coronavirus.”
West doubled down on Thursday, telling Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY, “Those statistics aren’t accurate, I don’t care who’s counting them.” West also espoused a conspiracy theory, saying, “Our system is so messed up they have emptied hospitals because there’s no elective surgery. The government has been giving these hospitals extra money if someone dies of the coronavirus. So everybody that dies is because of coronavirus. I don’t care if you get hit by a car, it’s coronavirus.”
It’s good that the MLBUA disavowed West, even if it didn’t mention him by name. That being said, is that enough? If you’re a player, how comfortable will you be playing in a game in which West is working? Do you trust him to call out a player who licked his fingers or coughed into his hand before touching the baseball? Do you trust him not to get in your face when he feels you disrespected him by questioning a call?
In order for this whole thing to work, the players, coaches, umpires, and all other personnel need to have a certain level of trust in each other. Players who are high-risk, or who have high-risk family members, are relying on everyone else to make smart decisions. They’re trusting their teammates, et. al. to wear masks and socially distance, to not to go out to bars and restaurants, to faithfully wash their hands. All it takes is one slip-up for things to go sideways for a player and, thus, the game. This is not a simple difference of opinion; lives and livelihoods are on the line. West, with his dismissive comments, is not engendering any trust.
Even in the not so life-and-death world of professional baseball, pandemic times call for pandemic measures. Read More
Creativity key for Blue Jays in shortened, challenging training camp — Toronto Sun
LOS ANGELES – The Dodgers made approximately $100 million in renovations to Dodger Stadium after the 2019 season ended. The nucleus is a brand-new center field plaza, which required a total teardown of the black backdrop facing home plate. The new backdrop is just as black, but it comes with some quirks. The singular tower…
For Dodgers’ Max Muncy, new center field backdrop is a painful adjustment — Daily News
SAN FRANCISCO — When Hunter Pence is at his best, his energy feeds crowds, his words inspire teammates and his at-bats become lively examples of what makes baseball so fun and compelling. For much of his career, Pence has been a clubhouse’s resident optimist, but even one of the sport’s most positive presences chose sobering…
Giants’ Hunter Pence echoes concerns of baseball’s stars: ‘I don’t think there’s any certainty here’ — Times-Standard
Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY Published 5:48 p.m. ET July 7, 2020 CLOSE What I’m Hearing: USA TODAY Sports’ Bob Nightengale discusses how players are responding to MLB’s delay in COVID-19 test results. USA TODAYScott Kingery first felt the symptoms of COVID-19 on June 11. He’s still nowhere near ready to contribute to the Philadelphia Phillies. That’s the…
‘This is not a two-week thing’: Phillies’ Scott Kingery details perilous COVID-19 battle —
HomePolitics‘This is not a two-week thing’: Phillies’ Scott Kingery details perilous COVID-19 battle
NWNAdmin July 7, 2020
Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY
Published 5: 48 p.m. ET July 7, 2020
What I’m Hearing: USA TODAY Sports’ Bob Nightengale discusses how players are responding to MLB’s delay in COVID-19 test results.
USA TODAY
Scott Kingery first felt the symptoms of COVID-19 on June 11.
He’s still nowhere near ready to contribute to the Philadelphia Phillies.
That’s the message the 26-year-old third baseman imparted after a nearly monthlong battle with the virus – a struggle that included an inaccurate test, a draining bout with severe flu-like symptoms and an enduring concern about his long-term welfare.
Kingery was among a group of seven Phillies who were delayed in reporting to the team’s “summer camp,” though due to privacy concerns, the team did not confirm nor deny the health status of the group. Tuesday, general manager Matt Klentak announced Kingery and pitcher Tommy Hunter tested positive last month, while outfielder Mikie Mahtook tested positive upon intake testing in Philadelphia.
Tuesday, Kingery opted to tell his story to NBC Sports Philadelphia, detailing a hellish month that began with a cough at his home in Phoenix.
“I tried to play it off but it didn’t go away,” he told NBC Sports of the symptoms that began on a Thursday. “Saturday around 10 a.m., I got chills so bad I couldn’t move without my whole body shaking. That night, my fever spiked so high that I sweated through my sheets. It left an imprint of my body. My fever broke Sunday morning and I actually felt a little better. But then three or four days later, I lost my sense of taste and smell for a few days. That was really annoying.”
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“For a week, I was so tired. Low energy. Fatigue. Then I experienced shortness of breath for a week. I felt like I laid on the couch for three weeks without moving. I was tired just going up the stairs.”
Kingery, 26, is one of nearly 40 major league players publicly identified to test positive for the coronavirus before or on their way into camps as Major League Baseball aims to launch a 60-game season beginning July 23.
According to data collected by USA TODAY Sports, 16 teams have at least one player who has been identified as testing positive, while at least two other teams have acknowledged positive tests without the player self-identifying.
Tuesday, two left-handed pitchers – Jesus Luzardo of the Oakland Athletics and Eduardo Rodriguez of the Boston Red Sox – were reported to test positive, which at the least will probably prevent them from starting the season on the active roster.
Kingery, like Atlanta Braves All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman, provides a cautionary note that the virus that has killed more than 130,000 Americans is not like any other injury, even for elite athletes.
He told NBC Sports someone among a group of ballplayers with whom he worked out in Arizona tested positive and Kingery got tested at an urgent care facility. Five days later, and in the throes of the aforementioned fever, he still didn’t have his result; he eventually called and was told it was negative.
The Phillies shipped him a test kit and this test turned up positive. He recently tested negative for the virus and must pass one more test before joining his teammates in Philadelphia.
As MLB struggles to meet the health and testing protocols it laid out to stage this season, Kingery understands why the precautions are so detailed – because the consequences are significant.
“I want people to know this is not a two-week thing if you get it,” he told NBC Sports. “You’re not supposed to do any physical activity for 10 to 14 days after a positive test. That could be a month. That’s a huge part of the season so you don’t want to get it. You have to take the precautions and protocols seriously.”
How this can be accomplished at a time when experts are saying there is, once again, a shortage of COVID-19 tests is an open question.
Baseball seeking a second lab for MLB COVID-19 tests — HardballTalk | NBC Sports
By Craig CalcaterraJul 7, 2020, 8:18 AM EDT5 Comments
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported last night that Major League Baseball is “actively pursuing an additional medical lab site to increase the speed and efficiency” of MLB COVID-19 tests.
The current setup — as planned by MLB and approved by the MLBPA as a part of the plan to play the 2020 season — is for all MLB COVID-19 tests to be sent to and processed by MLB’s PED testing lab in Salt Lake City, Utah. As you likely heard, there have been delays in the administration of COVID-19 tests and in the shipping of tests to Utah, but to date no one has reported that the lab itself has not been able to handle the tests once they’ve arrived there. If MLB is looking for a second lab site a week into this process, it suggests that their plans for the Utah lab might not be working the way they had anticipated.
The issues with testing have created unease around the game in recent days, with some players and team executives speaking out against Major League Baseball’s handling of the plan in the early going. Commissioner Rob Manfred, meanwhile, has responded defensively to the criticism.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported this morning that, months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States still lacks testing capacity. From the report:
Lines for coronavirus tests have stretched around city blocks and tests ran out altogether in at least one site on Monday, new evidence that the country is still struggling to create a sufficient testing system months into its battle with Covid-19 . . .“It’s terrifying, and clearly an evidence of a failure of the system,” said Dr. Morgan Katz, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins Hospital . . . in recent weeks, as cases have surged in many states, the demand for testing has soared, surpassing capacity and creating a new testing crisis.
It’s less than obvious, to say the least, how Major League Baseball plans to expand capacity for MLB COVID-19 tests while America as a whole is experiencing “a new testing crisis” and a “failure of the system.” At the very least it’s less than obvious how, even if Major League Baseball can do so, it can do so ethically.
West: “I don’t believe in my heart that all these deaths have been from the coronavirus.”
Joe West is not opting out of the 2020 season — HardballTalk | NBC Sports
By Craig CalcaterraJul 7, 2020, 10:26 AM EDT2 Comments
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic spoke to everyone’s favorite umpire, Joe West. He reports that even though West is considered high-risk for COVID-19, and even though he has the right to opt-out with full pay because of it, West is not opting out of the 2020 season.
West, who is 67 years-old, has a history of high blood pressure, and who is overweight, tells Rosenthal that Major League Baseball expected him to opt-out and was “taken aback” and “shocked” when he told them that he would not do so.
Partially it’s because he wants to set the all-time record for games worked. He’s 65 games of Bill Klem’s record and, if he works 2020, he can set the record early next year. Partially it’s because he’s not concerned about his health, telling Rosenthal, “If this game hasn’t gotten me by now, no virus is going to get me.” He says that he’s lost some weight and that his doctor says his heart is “as healthy as a horse’s.”
It’s also, it seems, because West is something of a COVID-19 skeptic:
“I said, ‘Look, most of these people that they’re reporting are dying are not healthy to begin with. I’ve lost 25 pounds over the winter. I’m playing golf every day in the heat. I’m fine. I’m not going to back down now.’
“I don’t believe in my heart that all these deaths have been from the coronavirus. I believe it may have contributed to some of the deaths. I said, ‘I’m not going to opt out. I’m going to work. And I’m going to work until you take me off the field or I get hurt, whatever. I’m working.’”
Alrighty then.
West — whose reputation as a game arbiter is not the greatest — goes on to add that baseball needs his seniority, referring to young umps without senior umps’ guidance as being “in a boat without an oar.”
Joe West is not opting out of the 2020 season. That’s his right and his reasons are his reasons, I suppose.
Good luck, everyone.
TORONTO BLUE JAYS ANNOUNCE 2020 60-GAME SCHEDULE
Fans can watch, play, and listen all season long on Sportsnet, SN NOW, the Sportsnet Radio Network, the MLB Ballpark app, and by following @BlueJays on social media
The Toronto Blue Jays today announce the 2020 60-game schedule. The team opens on the road on Friday, July 24 at 6:40 p.m. vs. the Tampa Bay Rays, before starting their first homestand on Wednesday, July 29 against the defending World Series Champion Washington Nationals. The regular season concludes at home on Sunday, Sept. 27 vs. the Baltimore Orioles.
The Blue Jays have unpaused the season and are asking fans to get in on the action by cheering them on from home. Fans can watch, play, and listen to their Blue Jays by tuning in to SN and SN NOW; listening on the Sportsnet Radio Network; playing games to win prizes on the MLB Ballpark app; and checking out behind-the-scenes content on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Fans are encouraged to check back often as there will be unique ways for them to connect and engage with the Blue Jays at the ballpark, from home!
While no final decision has been made on a site for Blue Jays regular season home games, the club’s preference remains Rogers Centre. The team continues to pursue this option with the health and safety of the general public and the team at the forefront and will communicate an update as information becomes available.
The full schedule is available at bluejays.com/schedule and in the attached PDF.
– BLUE JAYS –
The view from left field 