Two Major League Baseball games scheduled for Monday were postponed after the Miami Marlins had 11 players and two coaches test positive for COVID-19 in a matter of days.
The Marlins’ home opener against the Baltimore Orioles was scratched, along with the New York Yankees’ game at the Philadelphia Phillies — the team that hosted Miami over the weekend. The Orioles, who already had flown to Miami, reportedly returned to Baltimore Monday, ensuring that their Tuesday game also won’t be played.
The Marlins are scheduled to play two games against the Orioles at Camden Yards on Wednesday and Thursday. After that, the Washington Nationals are supposed to play a series at Miami over the weekend.
Those series — and, potentially, the fate of the entire season — are now in doubt as well.
“My level of concern went from about an eight to a 12,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “I mean, this thing really hits home now that you see, you know, half a team get infected and go from one city to another.”
Martinez — his voice shaking at times, as he repeatedly referred to his players and coaching staff as his family — could not say with certainty whether his team would travel to Miami later this week.
“Hopefully they make the right decision. That’s all I’m gonna say,” Martinez said. “Miami’s going through a difficult time with this virus, so we’ll see what happens in the next day or so.”
In a statement, Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said the team remained in Philadelphia and conducted another round of coronavirus tests Monday while deciding how to “navigate through these unchartered waters” of playing baseball during a pandemic.
“Postponing tonight’s home opener was the correct decision to ensure we take a collective pause and try to properly grasp the totality of this situation,” Jeter said.
The Marlins’ outbreak started with just four players, including starting pitcher Jose Urena and first baseman Garrett Cooper. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the team was aware of the positive tests, and Miami manager Don Mattingly let shortstop Miguel Rojas spearhead the decision of whether the team should play against the Phillies Sunday via a group text with teammates.
They played. Then, seven more players and two coaches had tests come back positive.
Several MLB teams have had to handle isolated cases of the coronavirus in recent weeks as the league got a 60-game season off the ground. But the Marlins’ 13 positive tests mark the biggest outbreak among an American professional sports team so far. Major League Soccer had two teams, FC Dallas and Nashville SC, withdraw from its “MLS is Back Tournament” earlier this month for outbreaks of 11 and nine positive cases, respectively.
Nationals star outfielder Juan Soto had a COVID-19 test come back positive the morning of opening night; Soto sat out for all three games of this weekend’s series against the New York Yankees. There is belief in the Nationals organization that his test was a false positive, but as of Monday, he hasn’t been cleared to return.
Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez caught COVID-19 before the season and recovered before rejoining his team. But now doctors have diagnosed the 27-year-old with a heart condition called myocarditis, which they believe was related to his bout with the virus.
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher David Price, who opted out of the season due to concerns about the pandemic, criticized MLB’s priorities in a tweet Monday that targeted commissioner Rob Manfred.
“Now we REALLY get to see if MLB is going to put players health first,” Price wrote. “Remember when Manfred said players health was PARAMOUNT?! Part of the reason I’m at home right now is because players health wasn’t being put first. I can see that hasn’t changed.”
Not every sport preparing to return from a four-month-long pause is having the same amount of trouble with the virus.
The NHL announced Monday it did not have a single positive test for the coronavirus between July 18 and July 25 out of 4,256 tests administered to more than 800 players. The week before that, the league had a mere two positive cases.
That was before 24 teams traveled from their home markets to the two Canadian “bubble” locations of Toronto and Edmonton Sunday.
Going forward this year, major sports leagues are destined to be split into two categories: the bubble sports — the NHL, the NBA and the WNBA — and the non-bubble sports — baseball, the NFL and college athletics.
Infectious disease specialist Todd Ellerin told ESPN’s “SportsCenter” that MLB should ask itself if it will be possible to stage games in “hotspot” states like Florida.
“I think that’s a very sort of difficult goal to achieve,” Ellerin said. “In states that have lower community transition, that really have things under control, I think it may be more realistic to try to go forth with the season as planned.”
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