Josh Taylor returned to the Boston Red Sox from the COVID-19 related injured list and was activated today, as he was able to leave the list before others after he didn’t test positive, and was just a close contact.
Danny Santana and Nick Pivetta were the latest to join the list, however, as they both joined the list for precautionary reasons. Luckily, both have not tested positive, both felt sick.
Pivetta was scratched from his start Sunday, and Kutter Crawford made his major-league debut where he lasted just 2+ innings.
Michael Feliz and Franchy Cordero also joined the roster, as Feliz joined today while Cordero joined after Santana joined the COVID IL. They optioned both Crawford and infielder Jack Lopez to Triple-A Worcester.
Feliz, 28, has posted an 8.79 ERA through 16 outings with the Reds and Pirates this season before being signed by Boston. He has appeared in 222 career games though, and has slated a 5.38 ERA to go along with a 4.07 FIP. The right-hander made 46 relief outings for the Houston Astros in 2017, when current Red Sox manager Alex Cora was Houston’s bench coach.
Kiké Hernandez will also most likely return to the Red Sox on Tuesday. Cora said Sunday that he’ll rejoin the team if he clears protocols, and it looks like he did as the utiity man was spotted playing catch by The Athletic‘s Jen McCaffrey after yesterday’s 11-5 loss.
Looks like Kiké Hernandez is playing catch on the field post game here. Probably means he cleared his protocols. Cora hoped he’d be back Tuesday but perhaps there’s a chance for tomorrow pic.twitter.com/iu1Wedsex1
— Jen McCaffrey (@jcmccaffrey) September 5, 2021
It’ll be interesting to see how the Sox use Hernandez, after spending a week and a half doing no baseball activities, in quarantine.
Santana, Pivetta, and Hernandez are still all currently on the list. They’re Christian Arroyo, Hirokazu Sawamura, Matt Barnes, Martin Perez, Jarren Duran, Yairo Munoz, and Xander Bogaerts on the list as well. Hernandez was the first one to join the list.
Many Boston players have been seen wearing masks in the dugout, while all coaches have worn masks.
Despite the outbreak, Sox head of baseball operations Chaim Bloom did confirm last week that there hasn’t been any word on postponing games. Boston has also gone 7-4 in the midst of the outbreak and will be 8-4 with a win today.
Bloom wouldn’t give a number, but he did say a lot of the positive tests are breakthrough cases, meaning most of the players who have tested positive are vaccinated.
“We’ve tried to lay on as much testing as possible just to give us the best chance to catch people who may be positive so that we can stop this thing in its tracks,” he said last week. “Beyond that, we’ve tried to emphasize diligence when we are indoors, in terms of distancing, masking, adjusting report times, adjusting the circumstances in which people are coming to the ballpark, buses everything. It’s similar to what we’ve tried to do all along but obviously when you know you have the virus in your group you have to take extra precautions.”
(Photo by Cole Burston/Getty Images)