This story has been updated at 11:46 a.m. on August 2. 

Major League Baseball says Juan Soto can return to the diamond after testing positive last week for coronavirus, according to multiple reports.

However, the D.C. government requires a 10 day waiting period after a positive test, a spokesperson from the Mayor’s Office confirmed to DCist/WAMU on Thursday morning, meaning the outfielder is not eligible to return until Saturday, August 1.

Soto, 21, has missed five games while quarantining due to positive test results coming mere hours before the team’s opening night game against the Yankees on Thursday.

Soto has reportedly taken six coronavirus tests since late last week, but it was only in the last day that he had the required two negative tests in a 24-hour period to meet the threshold imposed by Major League Baseball.

However, in terms of the agreement with the city, a series of negative tests are not required nor any type of approval from D.C. It’s simply a 10 day waiting period after a positive test.

There seems to be a misunderstanding of this process by Nationals’ manager Davey Martinez who told reporters yesterday that the team was was “still waiting for clearance from the D.C. Health Department” on when Soto could play again.

Soto also believes that the test was a false positive, he told reporters on Saturday. He cited as reasons that he’s tested negative multiple times since the initial positive result, he’s felt fine all week, and that he was really careful in terms of following rules prior to the test result.

With the weekend series against the Miami Marlins being canceled to their teamwide coronavirus outbreak and a Monday off day, it appears that Soto’s next opportunity to play won’t be until Tuesday, August 4 against the New York Mets.

DCist/WAMU has reached out to the Washington Nationals as well but has yet to hear back.

Luckily, Soto has remained asymptomatic and, so far, it doesn’t appear any other Nationals player has tested positive, even though Soto was practicing with the team while waiting for his test results that would later come up positive.

It’s unclear how or why Soto tested positive, though at the beginning of July, MLB chartered flights for players in the Dominican Republic so they could arrive back to the US to prepare for the upcoming season. Several Nationals players, including Soto, took these flights. As the Washington Post reported, players and staff were not tested prior to boarding those planes and multiple players have since tested positive for COVID-19 since.

It has been anything but smooth sailing for the Washington Nationals and the MLB as they attempt to start the season after a months-long delay due to the pandemic: The team was nearly pushed to find an alternative home ballpark; practice was canceled due to delayed test results; and players expressing their concern about the upcoming season provided a bumpy road to first pitch.

Since last week, Soto has tested positive for coronavirus and a back-up catcher got busted for a banned substance.

Yesterday, a much more serious complication arose when nearly half of the Miami Marlins players and staff tested positive for coronavirus (and several did so today). This team-wide outbreak forced MLB to suspend the team’s season and cancel their weekend series with the Nationals (which was something Nationals’ players had initially voted for earlier in the day).

“I’m going to be honest with you. I’m scared,” Washington Nationals’ manager Davey Martinez said in a Zoom call with reporters on Monday, even before the full extent of the Miami Marlins outbreak was known.

“My level of concern went from about an 8 to a 12,” said Martinez. “This thing really hits home now seeing half a team get infected and go from one city to another.”

This story has been updated with a clarification from the Mayor’s office about the 10 day waiting period after a positive test and with Soto’s comments about it possibly being a false positive.