A total of three Major League Baseball games were postponed Wednesday as athletes continue to react in the wake of the weekend shooting by police of Jacob Blake.

After the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers decided not to play, the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants also postponed their games on Wednesday.

Mookie Betts told his teammates he was sitting out and his Dodgers teammates backed him.

All three postponed games will be made up as doubleheaders Thursday. There is the possibility, too, that other games around the majors could be affected on Thursday.

The Milwaukee Brewers have decided to go on strike and not play their scheduled game Wednesday evening against the Cincinnati Reds.

The Milwaukee Bucks went on strike to protest the police shooting of Josh Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Josh Hader told reporters that the Bucks' decision was "an enormous stand."

"It's more than sports," Hader said. "This is a time where we need to really not stay quiet and [to] empower our voices."

The Cincinnati Reds are below .500, but they remain in play for the playoff berth in this year's expanded field.

The Reds' trade conversations have focused on adding talent rather than subtracting. The club hasn't made impending free agent Trevor Bauer available.

Bauer was acquired in a three-team trade at last year's deadline. He has a 0.68 ERA and 41 strikeouts in 26 1/3 innings.

Thom Brennaman will not be part of the NFL broadcasting team for FOX Sports this season after he used an anti-gay slur on air during a Cincinnati Reds broadcast on Wednesday.

"FOX Sports is extremely disappointed with Thom Brennaman's remarks during Wednesday's Cincinnati Reds telecast," Fox said in a statement. "The language used was abhorrent, unacceptable, and not representative of the values of FOX Sports."

Brennaman had been part of Fox's NFL announcer lineup since it started televising the league in 1994. He was part of the No. 3 announcer team last season and was paired with analyst Chris Spielman.

Major League Baseball has warned Trevor Bauer that he could be subject to discipline and removal from a game if he wears custom-made cleats that say "FREE JOE KELLY" on one shoe and have an illustration of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher on the other.

Kelly had an eight-game suspension reduced to five after he intentionally threw at Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa of the Houston Astros in a late-July game.

Bauer dominated the Kansas City Royals in his start on Wednesday. He struck out nine and walked three in a complete-game victory.

"MLB told us that they had a new cleat policy this year, where they're allowing us to put kinda whatever we want on the cleats, as long as it wasn't offensive or political," he said after the game. "Apparently that's not the truth; apparently that's just ... if they agree with it or not."

MLB contacted the Reds and said the cleats are against the footwear regulations bargained by the league and the Major League Baseball Players Association, sources said.

The Cincinnati Reds have suspended broadcaster Thom Brennaman after he used an anti-gay slur on air Wednesday night, prompting the team to apologize for the "horrific, homophobic remark."

The slur could be heard on the broadcast moments after the Fox Sports Ohio feed returned from a commercial break before the top of the seventh inning in the first game of a doubleheader against the Kansas City Royals.

Brennaman, who did not seem to realize he was on air, later apologized.

The Reds took him off the broadcast in the fifth inning of the second game, handing his duties to alternate play-by-play man Jim Day.

"The Cincinnati Reds organization is devastated by the horrific, homophobic remark made this evening by broadcaster Thom Brennaman," the team said in a statement. "He was pulled off the air, and effective immediately was suspended from doing Reds broadcasts. We will be addressing our broadcasting team in the coming days.

"In no way does this incident represent our players, coaches, organization, or our fans. We share our sincerest apologies to the LGBTQ+ community in Cincinnati, Kansas City, all across this country, and beyond. The Reds embrace a zero-tolerance policy for bias or discrimination of any kind, and we are truly sorry to anyone who has been offended."

The Cincinnati Reds are the third Major League team to have games postponed because one of the club's players tested positive for COVID-19.

The last two games of this weekend's Reds-Pittsburgh Pirates series at Great American Ball Park were postponed after the positive test.

The Reds have started the contact-tracing process to potentially isolate players who came into contact with the infected player.

Major League Baseball was awaiting further test results and doing contact tracing to gauge the extent of the concerns. The Reds had one player sidelined earlier this season after a COVID-19 test that later turned out to be a false positive.

Joey Votto has been placed on the injured list with virus symptoms.

Votto self-reported COVID-19 symptoms but he has not tested positive for the virus.

Votto, 36, is batting .259 with two home runs in seven games this season.