Down 10 players due to Canada’s COVID mandate requiring vaccination for all travelers arriving internationally, the Royals pulled off an improbable victory in Toronto, stunning the Blue Jays in Thursday night’s series opener. The shorthanded Royals were led by Nicky Lopez, who contributed two hits while displaying his usual surehanded glovework at second base. Among the most senior members of the team—or at least the ones in uniform Thursday night—Lopez seemed to embrace his leadership role, appreciative of the Royals who did make the trip to Canada.
“That was awesome. Right from pitch one, clawing back and forth,” said Lopez after a 3-1 victory at Rogers Centre. “This is obviously one of the better teams in the league. You guys know our situation. It was an unselfish win.”
In using the word “unselfish,” Lopez seemed to be taking a direct shot (no pun intended) at his unvaccinated teammates including Whit Merrifield, who controversially suggested he’d get vaccinated if traded to a contending team, preparing for the possibility of crossing paths with Toronto in the postseason. Online sleuths have spent much of the past 24 hours deconstructing Merrifield’s comments, feverishly workshopping different interpretations, though it seems the Twitter detectives have all reached the same conclusion—the Royals, at least in Merrifield’s mind, aren’t good enough for him to get the shot.
Using the vaccine as trade leverage is a new, decidedly warped twist in an ongoing saga pitting athletes against modern medicine, unwilling or afraid to make the necessary sacrifices required of them in a post-COVID environment. The pandemic, in many respects, has brought out the worst in people, giving into their most selfish urges while politicizing a hugely contagious and, in many instances, fatal virus with over six million deaths reported worldwide. It’s a polarizing subject, one that has divided workplaces, families, teams and, as evidenced by the hostility and anger we’ve seen in America the past two years, an entire country.
The irony, for Merrifield and Andrew Benintendi, is that their vaccination status probably works against them in their quest to be traded to more relevant teams in bigger media markets. Credit the Royals for making lemonade out of lemons Thursday night, showing impressive grit and resiliency in winning a difficult road game, beating the high-powered Jays with a patchwork lineup of backups and minor-leaguers fresh off the farm.
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