If you’ve been associating with the Boston Red Sox lately, you’ve probably come in contact with the flu.
Several players and even the team’s television play-by-play man have come down with the flu as it spreads rapidly through the Boston clubhouse.
Last week, first baseman Mitch Moreland and a few coaches were felled by the illness. It soon spread, with right fielder Mookie Betts missing three games and counting and designated hitter Hanley Ramirez being left in Boston on the team’s current road trip to recover from the illness. Reliever Robbie Ross has a case so severe he landed on the disabled list, and another reliever, Joe Kelly, stayed at the team hotel on Saturday with the virus.
In addition to these players, left fielder Andrew Benintendi threw up in the sixth inning Saturday but stayed in the game, with his status unclear. Red Sox play-by-play man Dave O’Brien left the ballpark during the middle of Sunday’s game after getting sick, too.
Manager John Farrell said the team has tried to quarantine sick players and coaches, but part of the difficulty is the fact that there are multiple illnesses going around.
“This hasn’t been able to be contained from one certain group to another or a couple of guys,” Farrell said, via ESPN’s Scott Lauber. “There’s three different things that are going around — one’s a respiratory one, one’s flu-like symptoms and one is the full-blown flu.”
A similar thing hit an NFL team’s locker room right in the midst of the playoffs. If there’s any silver lining, it’s that the Red Sox are getting this out of the way early in the season and not in October.
