MILWAUKEE, WI (WSAU) — There will be no baseball at Miller Park at all this weekend after a COVID-19 outbreak among the St. Louis Cardinals traveling party.
Late Saturday night MLB announced that Sunday’s doubleheader between the Crew and the Cards would be called off due to “additional testing and monitoring of the St Lous Cardinals’ players and staff members.”
The Cardinals have reportedly had as many as three players and a total of seven people in their traveling party test positive for the disease since arriving in Milwaukee from the Twin Cities. The Cardinals will now travel to Detroit for four games in three days from Tuesday to Thursday during which the Cardinals will be the home team for two games. That series also includes a Wednesday doubleheader that will consist of two 7-inning games.
Milwaukee, which has had no reported positive COVID-19 tests so far this season, will play four games this week against the Chicago White Sox beginning Monday. They also have a weekend set against the Cincinnati Reds scheduled to start on Friday.
After playing all scheduled games during the first full weekend of the season from July 23rd-26th, nearly 20 games have been either postponed or rescheduled across all of Major League Baseball. Many of those are tied to an outbreak on the Miami Marlins travel party who reported 19 positive tests for COVID-19 last week. That lead to the postponement of seven games for the Marlins and another seven for the Philadelphia Phillies.
St Louis played a series against Minnesota before Friday, prompting concerns that the Twins games against Cleveland could be in jeopardy. However, that series as been played as scheduled.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has reportedly issued a stern warning to the Player’s Association regarding procedures for stopping the transmission of COVID-19. ESPN reports that players have been told if another team reports an outbreak that wreaks havoc on the schedule, the season could be terminated as soon as Monday.
Manfred does have the power to cancel the remainder of the season on his own, and sources have told ESPN that the league has told its TV partners (TBS, ESPN, FS1, and team-specific RSN’s) to have backup programming ready in case that happens.
Comments