No new virus positives among MLB players as playoffs near

There were no new positive coronavirus tests among Major League Baseball players and staff members in the week ending Thursday, the league and its players union announced Friday.

Monitored testing found two positive results from among 12,381 samples, a 0.02 percent rate, but those were from the alternate training site of a single club.

Each MLB team keeps an alternate training site so players will be available should the club suffer an outbreak of positives, ensuring an available talent pool could be called upon so games can continue.

Among MLB players, there have been no new Covid-19 positives for 19 consecutive days and in 27 of the past 28 days.

There have been 127,718 total monitoring samples collected with 88 positive results, a 0.07 percent positive rate. Of those 56 were tests from players and 32 were from staff members.

After early outbreaks struck the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals, forcing postponement of several games, MLB has managed to avoid such major setbacks in the closing weeks of a 60-game per club campaign set to conclude on September 27.

An expanded playoffs will lead to the World Series being completed next month in a bubble quarantine atmosphere at the home ballpark of the Texas Rangers in suburban Dallas.

With 10 days remaining in the regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago White Sox have already clinched post-season berths.