Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo and Markus Canha are both off the lineup and likely to go on the injured list after testing positive for Covid-19, reports Mike Puma of the New York Post (Twitter link). Both players are asymptomatic. Newsday’s Tim Healey first reported this morning that tweets that a Mets employee tested positive and that some players were considered close contacts and were tested.
Under the league’s 2022 health and safety protocols, players who test positive are subject to a 10-day absence from the club, although it is possible to be reinstated in a shorter time if the player has gone 24 hours or more without a fever received a pair of negative PCR tests and approval from a team doctor and the MLB/MLBPA joint committee (a panel of one league-appointed doctor and one union-appointed doctor). Asymptomatic players will not be tested regularly under 2022 protocols, but it is possible that Canha (who told reporters last year that he is vaccinated) and Nimmo were considered to be close contacts of the employee(s) concerned.
With both Nimmo and Canha sidelined for at least the next few days, manager Buck Showalter tells reporters about the outfielder Nick Plummer and infielders Matt Reynolds are in the team (Twitter link via Puma). Showalter added that a member of his coaching staff tested positive (Twitter link via Healey).
Plummer is on the 40-man list, but Reynolds wasn’t previously on the 40-man list. Neither Nimmo nor Canha count towards the 40-man list on the Covid-related injuries list, but that makes it easier to include Reynolds on the list. The Mets have Jeff McNeil Starting in left field, Travis Jankowski Downtown, Robinson Cano at second base and JD Davis at designated hitter today. Dominik SchmidtThe left-handed slugger of is, somewhat surprisingly, not in the line-up against the right-handed one Zach Davisbut Showalter tells reporters that’s simply because he wanted to get Davis some attacks amid a long line of mostly right-handed opponents (Twitter link via Puma).