The first game in Friday’s series between the Cardinals and the Brewers in Milwaukee was postponed after two positive tests by the St. Louis players. It is the 15th MLB game to have been postponed due to positive COVID-19 testing just eight days into the 2020 season. The league intends for the Brewers and Cardinals to start their series on Saturday and have a double undercard on Sunday. Friday was originally slated to be the opening game for Milwaukee.
The Cardinals said the players were evaluated prior to Wednesday’s game against the Twins and received positive results Thursday night. The team also plans to conduct quick tests of their travel group.
Here’s the full statement from Friday’s team:
The St. Louis Cardinals learned last night that two players tested positive for COVID-19 in tests that were held on Wednesday, July 29 before their game against the Twins in Minneapolis, and have instructed the players and staff of the Equipment isolate in your Milwaukee hotel rooms until further notice.
The team did not leave their hotel this morning for Miller Park.
The Cardinals were scheduled to play the Milwaukee Brewers this afternoon. Major League Baseball has announced that today’s game against the Brewers is scheduled to be part of a double header game on Sunday, August 2 (1:10 pm CT).
The team is currently conducting rapid tests of the entire travel group, has implemented contact tracking, and will continue to isolate itself.
According to Mark Saxon of The Athletic, two Cardinals pitchers have tested positive for the virus.
This is troubling news for MLB on the obvious level that additional players or team personnel have tested positive for a virus that carries potentially serious consequences. Beyond that, this also means MLB is grappling with positive evidence outside the cluster within the Marlins, prompting the postponement of multiple games. This also marks the first time that MLB has been dealing with positive tests outside of the Eastern divisions. The Cardinals recently played against the Twins, who in turn played against Cleveland on Thursday. As such, these positive tests appear to have implications outside of the game scheduled for Friday in Milwaukee.
Regardless of what details come up, this is troubling news for MLB. The 2020 regular season is less than a week old, and already a sizable percentage of league teams have seen their schedules affected by positive tests. This summarizes the current dilemma:
That’s not a promising indicator when it comes to the feasibility of playing a regular season of 60 games and expanded playoffs as planned. The calendar was already full of games, which means little room to maneuver around even small clusters of cases and outbreaks.
