Giants, Padres to play doubleheader today after virus protocols cleared

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The Giants and Padres will be back in action a lot sooner than expected. 

A second round of COVID-19 tests all came back negative late Saturday, allowing MLB to go ahead with plans to schedule a doubleheader Sunday,  Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune first reported and MLB later confirmed.

The teams will play two seven-inning games at Petco Park, starting at 1:10 p.m. PT. Both games can be seen on NBC Sports Bay Area or streamed on NBCSportsBayArea.com and the MyTeams app.

"Following a careful review of all of the details presented in the particular case regarding a San Francisco Giants player that led to the postponements of their road games in San Diego on Friday and Saturday, the committee has determined that the presumptive positive did not represent an actual infection or present a risk to other personnel," MLB said in a statement.

MLB moved quickly to cancel the middle two games of the four-game series after a Giants player tested positive Friday afternoon. However, the league never canceled the Sunday game, and the Giants held out hope all day Saturday that the test result would prove to be a false positive, allowing them to return to the field Sunday.

The Giants underwent rapid tests Friday night, and all tests came back negative for their traveling party. They went through testing again Saturday but had to wait for the results to come back from MLB's lab.

The Giants were not allowed to leave their hotel rooms as they awaited results, but they were on standby, and sources said late in the day that the team was preparing to play two games Sunday if another round of negative results came back. 

The player who tested positive Friday had at least two negative results come back. It's unclear what his immediate status is, in terms of being eligible to play Sunday. MLB does require that two negatives come back on tests taken at least 24 hours apart, but because the original result was deemed a false positive, those rules -- set before the start of summer camp -- might not be in play. 

The Giants and Padres still will have at least one game to make up. They had been talking about playing a doubleheader on the mutual off day on Thursday, but it now appears likely that they'll make up the game over the season's final weekend, when the Padres visit Oracle Park. The Padres can be designated as the home team for that game.

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