Hunter Renfroe claimed the league had essentially told the Red Sox to stop COVID testing during the team's recent outbreak. Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

Major League Baseball is disputing comments made by Boston outfielder Hunter Renfroe in which he claimed the league had essentially told the Red Sox to stop COVID testing during the team's recent outbreak.

The Red Sox have placed 11 players on the COVID-19 IL since Aug. 29 as an outbreak spread through the clubhouse, with numerous players testing positive. Most of those players have already returned or are close to doing so, and the outbreak appears to have been contained.

Renfroe, however, told WEEI’s “Merloni & Fauria” that the issues were bad enough that the league told the team to stop testing and focus instead on treating symptomatic players, a directive the Red Sox ignored.

The Red Sox and MLB both quickly issued statements disputing Renfroe’s comments.

Obviously, it would look bad if MLB told the Red Sox to stop testing players for COVID in the middle of an outbreak. While not the same thing, it does elicit memories of the controversy at the end of the World Series last year.

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