The Red Sox are in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak with seven members of the organization testing positive since last week.
Boston brought a taxi squad to Tampa Bay for its series against the Rays, and acquired pitcher Brad Peacock from the Cleveland Indians prior to first pitch Monday after MartÃn Pérez and Matt Barnes contracted the virus.
Hirokazu Sawamura became the seventh member of the club to test positive, and now the Red Sox have just six relievers available out of the bullpen in a game when Peacock — who hasn’t pitched in a Major League Baseball game this season — is starting.
Manager Alex Cora sounded defeated after Boston’s 6-1 loss to Tampa Bay on Monday from having to deal with the day’s events, and he revealed Tuesday that he’s “concerned” about more potential cases of COVID-19 in the clubhouse.
“I’m concerned. I am,” Cora told reporters over Zoom. “It feels like it’s one every day. It’s just the nature of where we’re at. This is our reality. We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing as far as like testing and see what happens. Hopefully this is the end of it. But there’s no guarantees.
“… You try to put it as positive as possible. It’s not easy.”
Hopefully the rest of the players will be OK and there will be no issues going forward. But it’s obviously unclear if things will get worse before they begin to get better.
