Major League Baseball has announced that the Miami Marlins schedule has been suspended. They will, tentatively, resume play on Monday. The Philadelphia Phillies, meanwhile, will not play until Friday. Instead of the Phillies-Yankees games scheduled for Yankee Stadium on Wednesday and Thursday, the Baltimore Orioles — previously scheduled to play the Marlins in Baltimore later this week — will now play the Yankees in Baltimore.
All of this, of course, was caused by the COVID-19 outbreak on the Marlins and the potential risk to the Phillies, who played Miami this past weekend. In suspending the Marlins schedule, Major League Baseball likewise diffuses the potentially explosive situation presented by the Washington Nationals players voting not to make the trip to Miami this weekend.
The Marlins had four players test positive for Sunday’s game against the Phillies, but played anyway, had eight more players test positive yesterday and four more today. Their Monday and Tuesday games against the Orioles were postponed as were the Phillies games against the Yankees scheduled for Philadelphia.
Despite Major League Baseball’s announcement that the Marlins schedule is suspended until Monday, it’s possible that it may be suspended longer than that. That’s because because Miami’s mayor just released a statement saying that the team should be required to quarantine for 14 days given that they were knowingly exposed to COVID-19. Many baseball teams have already received special dispensation from local governments on such requirements. It’s unclear how Marlins situation will play out give than statement from the mayor and given that Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has moved to aggressively curtail cities’ efforts at fighting the pandemic, could weigh in as well.
Here’s the official announcement from Major League Baseball:
