WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Houston Astro has zero to eight pitches due to the COVID-19 protocol, but General Manager James Klick said the team had no plans to stop activity at the spring training camp.
Manager Dusty Baker said on Friday that pitchers Cristian Xavier, Pedro Baez, Francis Martes, Anoli Pardes and Hector Velazquez were out. On Thursday, Baker said pitcher Brian Abreu, Ronel Blanco and Luis Garcia were sent away from the compound.
It was not known whether the eight pitchers had tested positive for the virus or tested positive, which came in close contact with someone. There was no exact timetable for his return, but he would have to quarantine for at least one week under Major League Baseball’s health and safety protocol.
Earlier this week, Astro lost starter Framber Valdez when he suffered a broken left finger while fielding a ball in an exhibition game.
However, the Astros are not in any danger of getting out of the pitcher. They list 23 pitchers on their 40-man roster, and 16 more nonster pitchers at the camp.
Jose Urquidy started and played two innings against Miami on Friday.
Klick said the team was not worried about a possible camp shutdown.
“No, we’re not worried about that,” he told the Houston media, adding the protocol is designed to “isolate any potential issues and prevent them from reaching the scale at which point we should be shut down.” Have to consider doing or stopping. “
Klick said the team had plans to move away from the club premises to allow the players to continue their work.
As for pitching plans in the coming week, Baker said it was a matter of “adjusted and readable”.
He said, “We have found a way to work around it and find solutions. We are missing some weapons now. We are worried, but fortunately we had more pitchers, when we knew what to do when we opened the camp.
The Astros share their spring training complex and ballpark with the citizens of Washington.
“We heard they had some things going on there,” Washington manager Dave Martinez said. “Today was our exam day. Before we tested, we asked people questions about whether they were with any of the Houston Astro coaches involved. They all say no, so hopefully we can keep our side of the stadium free. “
“I want to say, our people are doing a great job of following the protocol. So I hope everyone has an OK with Houston and they can sink it in the bud,” he said.
Nineteen big league players and six employees have tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of spring training, a positive rate of 0.07 percent among 34,541 trials.
The commissioner’s office and the players’ union said on Friday that individual tests of sixteen of the 30 teams had been positive.
None of the 81 intake tests were positive in the previous week, leaving 12 players and three employees positive among 5,317 intake tests, a 0.03 percent positive rate so far.
All players on the 40-man roster and players with minor league contracts invited to big league training camp are screened. All other on-field personnel such as managers, coaches and athletic trainers, strength and conditioning staff and physicians have also been tested.
In the final figures released last year, MLB said it had collected 172,740 samples and was 91 positive or 0.05 percent. Thirty-seven out of 91 positives have been players, and 21 of the 30 teams have one individual covered by the monitoring test positive.
Last year, 45 regular-season games were postponed due to virus-related reasons, but not just two were made between St. Louis and Detroit.
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