Report: Red Sox, Yankees Players Preparing To Play Friday Night
BOSTON (CBS) -- It remains unknown if there will be baseball at Yankee Stadium on Friday night. The Red Sox and the Yankees are still on hold as the teams go through additional COVID-19 testing after New York had a slew of positive tests on Thursday.
Those positive tests caused the postponement of Thursday night's series opener between the AL East rivals. There has been no official word on Friday's game, but players on both teams are preparing to play.
Update: The game will go on as scheduled on Friday, with Thursday's game rescheduled as part of a doubleheader in August.
One source even told ESPN's Enrique Rojas, "We will play today."
Source: "We will play today"#RedSox and #Yankees prepare to play on Friday, after postponing Thursday due to covid cases in NYY.
— Enrique Rojas/ESPN (@Enrique_Rojas1) July 16, 2021
This could change, but: For now, there's optimism that Red Sox and Yankees will be able to play tonight. Obviously, there has been and will be heightened testing to make sure that the teams can play.
— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) July 16, 2021
The Red Sox also announced that Alex Cora will chat with reporters at 4:15 p.m. via Zoom for his usual pre-game availability, so it does indeed appear as though there will be a game Friday night.
Thursday night's tilt was postponed when three Yankees players -- all bullpen pitchers -- returned positive COVID-19 tests. The Yankees also had three position players enter COVID-19 protocol, including All-Star outfielder Aaron Judge. Those players are going through additional testing to confirm their initial positive tests.
That triggered Boston's five All-Stars -- Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi and Matt Barnes -- to begin contact tracing.
Thursday night's game was the only one on MLB's slate and the first game to be played following Tuesday's All-Star Game. Instead, it became the eighth game to be postponed due to COVID-19 this season. The game was called less than three hours before the first pitch was scheduled to be thrown, when the Red Sox were on the field for batting practice.
Boston held a brief workout on the field after the game was postponed.
So far this season, the Red Sox have won all six matchups against the Yankees. Friday is the second game of a four-game set, with both Saturday and Sunday's games set to air on national TV.