It didn’t take long for the reality of the pandemic to reshuffle the restart of the 2020 baseball season. Here’s a look at the past week.
It didn’t take long for the reality of the coronavirus pandemic to affect the restart of the 2020 Major League Baseball season.
In just the past five days, we’ve seen more than a dozen postponements or schedule shifts, affecting eight different teams.
It can be difficult to keep track of, but here’s how the week has gone down so far, starting with Sunday’s prelude to the first postponements on Monday.
Postponed games: None.
Ninety minutes before the first pitch of the finale of a season-opening series between the Miami Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, the Marlins announce that right-hander Jose Urena has been scratched from his scheduled start. No reason is given at the time, but later it is learned he is among four Marlins players who tested positive for COVID-19. The teams elect to play despite Urena’s unavailability, and the Marlins win the game 11-6; later, Miami postpones its flight home.
Rob Manfred isn’t putting the Marlins’ coronavirus situation in a « nightmare » category, but he does say there is a point that would cause MLB to shut down part, or even all, of the schedule.
Postponed games: Yankees at Phillies; Orioles at Marlins.
With the Marlins quarantined in Philadelphia, Miami’s home opener against the Baltimore Orioles is postponed, as well as their scheduled game on Tuesday. At this point, the Marlins have at least 11 players and two coaches who have tested positive.
The Phillies’ game against the New York Yankees is also postponed — « out of an abundance of caution, » according to MLB — as Philadelphia awaits the results of its own set of coronavirus tests.
In an interview that airs Monday night on MLB Network, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says, « I don’t put this in the nightmare category. It’s not a positive thing, but I don’t see it as a nightmare…. That’s why we have the expanded rosters. That’s why we have the pool of additional players.
