The Cleveland Guardians’ game against the Chicago White Sox has been postponed due to multiple positive COVID-19 tests within the Guardians organization, Major League Baseball announced Wednesday.
The match has been postponed to allow testing and contact tracing to continue. MLB will provide an update to reschedule as it becomes available.
It was announced earlier on Wednesday that Guardians coach Terry Francona has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be sidelined indefinitely. He didn’t show any symptoms. Francona, 63, has missed much of the past two seasons due to a variety of health issues.
Sources familiar with the situation told ESPN Jesse Rogers that the match was postponed due to multiple positive tests between the coaches and the traveling group. The positive tests stem from some people in the group of travelers who had symptoms, the sources said.
Guardians coach DeMarlo Hill, who took over when Francona departed last season, was scheduled to officiate the series final against the White Sox. Hill will remain in this role until Francona returns to the team.
It is the first game postponed this season due to Covid-19 after the league postponed nine matches out of 2,429 matches last season. 45 out of 900 games have been postponed due to COVID-19 during the abridged 2020 season.
The Guardians could still play their next game, Friday in Minnesota, but they may need to bring in coaches from their minor league system.
The Cleveland team was recently infected with the Corona virus outbreak with the strikers Owen MillerAnd Yu Chang and jugs Cal Quantrell and Anthony Castro, all of whom are on the list of COVID-19 infections.
Francona is in good health this season after two challenging years. In 2020, he managed only 14 games during the short season of the pandemic before he was hospitalized with digestive issues.
Last year, Francona struggled after undergoing off-season foot surgery and left the team in July.
Francona in his tenth season with Cleveland. He won two world titles with the Boston Red Sox.
Information from ESPN’s Jesse Rogers and The Associated Press was used in this report