MLB: Yankees’ Anthony Rizzo tests positive for Covid-19
New York, New York – The Yankees may be finally rolling smoothly on the field, but off it they are hitting all the bumps. Anthony Rizzo tested positive for the coronavirus Saturday night, joining Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery, and Gary Sanchez on the Covid-19 injury list.
"I just spoke with him, he’s doing all right," Aaron Boone said. "He’s got some symptoms but he’s doing okay and obviously a little bummed out but hopefully, a chance to get rested up and obviously, be back. Hopefully sooner rather than later and back to impacting us."
"In the meantime, I’m really excited to see Luke Voit back here," the Yankees manager continued. "He’s here ready to go and obviously we know how impactful Luke can be and looking forward to seeing him in the middle of our lineup today."
Rizzo, whom the Yankees acquired at the trade deadline from the Cubs, told ESPN radio in Chicago that he chose not to be vaccinated.
"It’s not an easy decision to make, but I think it’s the right decision for me and my family right now," Rizzo said in June.
The Yankees declined to say whether that had changed. The team changed its policy in terms of revealing whether these cases are "breakthrough" cases, meaning if the patient had been fully vaccinated, during their last outbreak.
This is the third outbreak for the team this season.
They had a big outbreak of breakthrough cases in May, which included one player, Gleyber Torres, several support personnel in the traveling party, and three coaches. Third base coach Phil Nevin missed a month when his Covid-19 case uncovered a staph infection in his blood.
After the All-Star break, the Yankees had six players on the Covid-19 injured list, including reliever Jonathan Loaisiga, slugger Aaron Judge, and third baseman Gio Urshela testing positive after the break.
Yankees players could have caught Covid during away games
"I don’t even know and we got to talk about this internally and we’re not going down the road of playing this guy’s vaccinated, that guy’s vaccinated and everyone deduces what they want from that," Boone said. "We obviously, have a large percentage of us are, but I’m not going to get into that anymore."
Boone feels this outbreak is tied to the Yankees’ last road trip, which included stops in Tampa and Miami.
"I think a lot came out of Florida ... in this wave of them," Boone said of the latest cases. "But no, I mean I think it’s a little bit of just ... you don’t know where and when it’s spreading. Obviously things have been, for a while, returned to almost completely normal and that went for us as well. But certainly things are much more relaxed so there’s those chances even for vaccinated people that, you know, it can spread."
Florida currently leads the nation in new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, but not far behind is Missouri, where the Yankees head next to face the Royals. The Yankees reached the 85% vaccination rate among their "Tier 1" personnel back in May – which under the MLB and MLBPA agreement meant they could loosen some Covid-19 protocols. Some of the behind-the-scenes personnel have returned to wearing masks, and Boone said there has been some tightening of the protocols again, but also said they do not want to be "too restrictive."
"I think in a lot of cases we are already being more careful," Boone said. "But those will be conversations that we have to make sure we’re not doing anything that’s too outgoing or, without being too restrictive, making sure that we’re taking care of ourselves."
Voit returned from Scranton, where he was rehabbing after being on the injured list with inflammation in his left knee.
Voit missed the first 34 games of the season recovering from knee surgery and then he suffered a strained oblique and missed 23 games. He went back on the IL with inflammation in the knee the Yankees believe is related to his spring surgery.
But even when he’s been in the games, he has struggled. In the 29 games he has played, Voit has struggled to get going, hitting .241/.328/.370 with three homers and 11 RBI.
Cover photo: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire