Major League Baseball announced today that tonight’s Cardinals-Brewers game is postponed due to two positive COVID-19 tests on the Cardinals. The game has been rescheduled as part of a doubleheader on Sunday. Saturday’s game is currently scheduled to go on as planned.
In its official announcement, MLB said the rescheduling is “consistent with protocols to allow enough time for additional testing and contact tracing to be conducted.” The fear, obviously, is that, like with the Marlins, it won’t just be two positive tests.
As everyone knows by now, eighteen Marlins players and two staffers have tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the cancellation of a number of games, the quarantining of the club and, apparently, some extraordinary measures to get the sick players home. That all started with one positive test last Friday, expanded to four by Sunday, and then resulted in an increasingly large outbreak which is delivering positive tests a full week later. The Phillies, who the Marlins played last Sunday despite knowing, at the time, that four players had tested positive and that others might, have also been idled, and yesterday reported a second positive test on their club.
If the pattern with the Marlins is any guide, we’ll hear later today or tomorrow morning if more positive tests roll in and will be able to get a sense of how bad this is. And, of course, whether we can add the Brewers and the Cardinals to the list of teams that are indefinitely sidelined. For now, though, we just know that the Cardinals-Brewers game is postponed.
If the Cardinals and Brewers are sidelined for more than just one game, however, it’ll bring the number of teams in limbo to four. Which -- in addition to the obvious health concerns present for any of the players, team personnel, and family members affected -- has repercussions across the league as far as scheduling and logistics go. For example, the Washington Nationals and the Toronto Blue Jays are about to have at least four days off because their opponents’ schedule has been suspended. If the same happens in the wake of the Cardinals-Brewers game being postponed, the wave will grow bigger.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. Especially when you aren’t playing in a bubble.