MLB Coronavirus Testing: A `Night and Day’ Difference After a `Hot Garbage’ start
If you want to measure how far Major League Baseball has come in testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus in the first two weeks, check out the Jake-O-Meter.
A month ago, as teams were reassembling following an almost four-month shutdown over the virus, it was difficult to find anyone more disappointed with the way the testing was being hassled, and Jake Diekman’s Oakland A’s were one of the squads who lost time getting on the field when results didn’t get back as quickly as promised.
Backlogs hit about a half dozen teams hard.
“I’m going to get a lot of shit for this, but I don’t care,” he said back after the Fourth of July holiday. “I hope they get the testing figured out, because the thing that would hurt the most … would be getting to July 24 (opening day) and then they just bang the whole thing.
“In a perfect world there would be zero (backlogs). This is the first time they’ve probably ever done this. I know they are trying their hardest. But I don’t know if it’s good enough for right now.”
Baseball stepped up its game. Once the sport morphed from workouts to games, there weren’t any more testing results timing issues. There were plenty of test problems, of course, particularly with the Miami Marlins and the St, Louis Cardinals, both of whom had players who had trouble adhering to social distancing guidelines.
But those problems were on the players themselves.
The actual testing – the A’s players and staff get tested every other day – and the timing seem to be working out.
Talk to Diekman now, and he’s on board with the way MLB has gotten it together.
“I mean, it’s a night and day difference,” the A’s left-handed reliever said Wednesday. “It was hot garbage at the beginning of this. It was terrible. And then now, it’s great. We get test results so fast. We Just had a test today (Tuesday), and we’ll probably get that (result) by like tomorrow at some point. But now, it’s really, really good.
“Again, I just think it’s the teams that keep themselves accountable the most about staying somewhat in this bubble will be the best moving forward at the end of September.”
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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