St. Louis Cardinals News: Molina, DeJong, among positive COVID-19 tests

When the St. Louis Cardinals return to play, they will likely be without their future Hall of Fame catcher Yadier Molina among other positives.

To this point, none of the St. Louis Cardinals players or staff that tested positive for COVID-19 had given consent for the team to release their names to the public.

All we knew based on the initial two positives the team received Friday was that they were both pitchers, and we knew that there were seven players and six staffers positive on Monday.

That just changed as Yadier Molina has announced on his Instagram that he was one of the positive players.

The outpouring of love we are seeing on Twitter today wishing the fan-favorite good health is great to see, I just hope we see that with every player that comes out as positive.

To be honest, COVID-19 is messing with the wrong guy.

While Molina did not reveal whether or not he was experiencing symptoms or not, it is notable to see him say that despite “following the prevention recommendations,” he still got sick. The whole #casinogate drama of the past couple of days seems to be false. By all accounts of those close to the team (important caveat there), an infected person was on the team plane, something that would’ve been difficult to stop.

Just after Molina posted his news on Instagram, the Cardinals revealed all but one of the rest of the players who tested positive.

We wish the best recovery for Molina, Paul DeJong, Kodi Whitley, Junior Fernandez, Edmundo Sosa, Rangel Ravelo, and the other player who tested positive as well as the six staffers. We know that these guys are all asymptomatic or at worst mildly symptomatic, but anyone being sick with COVID-19 at any point is a scary proposition.

Obviously Molina and DeJong are the biggest names to test positive, but each of the positive tests of both the players AND the staffers deserves equal concern and well-wishes. They are all living people dealing who have been infected with the virus behind a global pandemic. 

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The Cardinals still need to have one more day of testing negative in Milwaukee before they will be cleared to return to St. Louis. The team has plenty of players at Springfield to be able to fill the holes left by these players who are afflicted, but that is not anywhere near the primary concern right now.

The primary concern is solely on the players remaining in good health and getting them safely back to playing as soon as they are healthy. It can’t be fun to have to release the news that you are one of the positives, but it would’ve been obvious if all of the sudden these players were put on the Injured List.

These players being out is going to hit the Cardinals hard, but they have a satellite roster for a reason. The primary concern is the health of everyone who tested positive. With six of the seven players who were positive announced, we can start to piece together what the roster may look like when the Cardinals hopefully return to play on Friday.