Following multiple New York Yankees players returning COVID-19 positive tests, Major League Baseball (MLB) postponed Thursday’s scheduled game between visiting Boston and the Yankees.

Major League Baseball scheduled just one game on Thursday, putting the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in the national spotlight at Yankee Stadium to start the nominal second half of the season. Then an unwelcome intruder got in the way.

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An MLB statement said the contest, which comes following a break for the MLB All-Star Game, was postponed “to allow for continued testing and contact tracing.”

Just two and a half hours before the scheduled start time, the Yankees pulled off the team from the field and cancelled batting practise, giving rise to speculations.

Soon after, MLB came out with the statement, saying the game was postponed because three Yankees pitchers — Nestor Cortes Jr., Jonathan Loaisiga and Wandy Peralta, each of whom is vaccinated — had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, General Manager Brian Cashman said three other players had tested positive through multiple rapid tests, and that the team expected those players’ laboratory tests to also come back positive, according to reports from the New York Times.

Cashman said the team had again experienced breakthrough cases, two months after an outbreak of nine cases, mostly within the coaching staff.  

“It doesn’t prevent you from contracting COVID; it prevents you from the severe, worst-case effects of COVID,” Cashman said, according to NYT reports. “We’re thankful that we’re vaccinated in most cases — not in all cases — and therefore we’re ultimately protected.”

So far the game is only the eighth of the campaign to be postponed due to COVID-19 and the first since April 19.

According to the regulations of the league, teams who reached the 85% vaccination level were allowed to scale back coronavirus safety measures such as face masks in dugouts and bullpens and the Yankees were among the first teams to qualify.

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The Yankees put Loaisiga on the COVID-19 injured list on Saturday in Houston, and he did not travel with the team after that series, which led into the All-Star break. Cortes and Peralta were placed on the list on Thursday.

Cashman did not know the status of the Yankees’ remaining weekend games with the Red Sox, who are scheduled to be in New York through Sunday. Given the two outbreaks the team has now experienced, he said the Yankees would consider a change in protocols.

“We certainly will re-evaluate everything we have done and see if there’s anything we can be better at moving forward,” Cashman said. “Those are fair questions to ask.”