Justin Turner Celebrates Dodgers' World Series Win With Teammates Despite Testing Positive For COVID-19
Not even a mid-game coronavirus diagnosis was going to stop Justin Turner from celebrating the Los Angeles Dodgers’ World Series championship.
After the third baseman was removed from Tuesday night’s World Series clincher because MLB discovered he had tested positive for COVID-19, Turner was part of the post-game celebration on the field in Arlington, Texas.
In the eighth inning of Los Angeles’ 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, Turner was sent to a room to isolate at Globe Life Field. The 35-year-old wasn’t on the field in the immediate aftermath of the Dodgers’ victory, but he eventually joined his teammates and took part in a team picture.
Turner was seen with his mask off at various points of the celebration. Manager Dave Roberts and the rest of the team didn’t seem to mind that Turner was celebrating, despite his recent positive test.
“He’s part of the team,” Mookie Betts said of Turner. “Forget all that, he’s part of the team. We’re not excluding him from anything.”
The answer is he went back out and nobody stopped him. He was asked to isolate and didn’t. https://t.co/AFyWN0Xt0b
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 28, 2020
Turner went into isolation after finding out he had tested positive. He eventually returned to the field on his own accord.
— Starting 9 (@Starting9) October 28, 2020
MLB officials found out & instructed security to get Turner back into isolation. Turner refused to leave per @jareddiamond
pic.twitter.com/G3tW6a4XYF
Betts appeared confused by Turner’s positive test, considering every playoff team was part of MLB’s bubble. Players were restricted from going anywhere besides the team hotel and the ballpark. There were no positive tests during the postseason before Game 6.
“I haven’t seen the pictures. I totally understand the question. If there are people around him without masks, that’s not good optics at all,” Dodgers president Andrew Friedman said, via The Athletic. “But I think from our standpoint, I think the people who were around him were the people that would be in the contact tracing web anyway, which is how closely a lot of us have been around each other. Now I think subsequent tests we’re going to take are really important to figure out what we do and to make sure any of us that are potentially positive do not spread it to other people.”
Turner is the longest-tenured position player on the Dodgers. He holds the franchise record with 12 career playoff home runs.
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