A Phillies coach tests positive for COVID-19. In case you wanted to know if this was ever gonna end.
Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports that the Philadelphia Phillies have announced that “all activity at Citizens Bank Park has been cancelled today and until further notice” after two staff members tested positive for COVID-19. That includes one member of the Phillies coaching staff.
To date the outbreak which has idled the Miami Marlins had mostly spared the Phillies, who played them at Citizens Bank Park last weekend. A visiting clubhouse attendant had tested positive, which is understandable given the close quarters they share with the visiting players, but no Phillies players or coaches have been infected until now. Of course, given that epidemiologists generally believe that negative tests are not likely to be reliable until a few days after exposure, this is not something that has come from completely out of left field either.
The Phillies have been idled through Friday, as Major League Baseball waits to see if they were infected by the visiting Marlins. While, hopefully, this is a coincidence and the person who tested positive contracted the virus elsewhere and has not infected others on the Phillies, but when a Phillies coach tests positive, it may be sign that the Marlins problem is going wider than first thought.
. @Phillies announce that "all activity at Citizens Bank Park has been cancelled today and until further notice" after two staff members tested positive for COVID-19, including one member of coaching staff. No players tested positive. @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) July 30, 2020
UPDATE: and now, it seems, all of the Phillies-Blue Jays games scheduled this weekend have been postponed:
#BlueJays manager Charlie Montoyo says games this weekend in Philadelphia have been postponed
— Kaitlyn McGrath (@kaitlyncmcgrath) July 30, 2020
