4:05pm: Major League Baseball has formally announced the postponement of this weekend’s Jays/Phillies series and issued the following statement:
Out of an abundance of caution, the Philadelphia Phillies’ three-game weekend series with the Toronto Blue Jays, scheduled for Saturday, August 1st and Sunday, August 2nd at Citizens Bank Park, has been postponed. Major League Baseball will coordinate with health experts and the Major League Baseball Players Association in planning for the Phillies’ resumption of play, and will provide further scheduling updates as necessary.
12:34pm: The scheduled weekend series between the Phillies and Blue Jays has been postponed, Toronto skipper Charlie Montoyo tells reporters including Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca (via Twitter). For the time being, the Jays will hang tight in D.C. and await further word after wrapping up their series with the Nats.
This adds to a still-building MLB scheduling pile-up that will require increasingly convoluted mid-season adaptations. The hope had been that the Marlins’ COVID-19 breakout would stay within that club. But it emerged this morning that two non-player members of the Phillies organization have come down with infections.
With two teams sidelined, their planned opponents are also on ice. In this case, the Jays and Nats may actually end up hanging out waiting in the same place. There’s no word yet whether the league will somehow attempt to stage contests between those two organizations in order to keep logging games.
This season is hanging by a thread….
Blue Jays are having so many issues this season.
This is getting ridiculous
Gonna be a lot of doubleheader’s
Gonna be a lot of double headers
7 inning double-headers at that …smh
Kind of ridiculous to cancel this series tbh.
If this is the reaction you’re going to have now 4 days after they played you might as well end the Marlins and Phillies seasons and start playing with 28 teams, and little by little eliminate until you have a champion.
Or don’t play at all.
But if they realistically wanted to play this season they needed to be willing to assume some risk and the Phillies continuing to play is really risk they need to assume if they want to make it work
Of course it’s ridiculous. But they know they will be villified in the media if they don’t go overboard with precautions. Just like every other business is practically forced to do.
The Marlins had more players test positive today. The Phillies received two positive tests from their organization today. A home clubhouse attendant and a member of the coaching staff. No players yet, but the assumption is more positive cases are coming. It’s not ridiculous to cancel the series. The Marlins have been ravaged by this virus and it’s quickly spreading to the Phillies. It’s absolutely the right thing to cancel the series. Stop the spread now.
The risk was that at some point there would be an outbreak that would effect some team. The plan was to increase the player pool (to upwards of 60) to be able to continually replace those infected to be able to continue playing without having to worry about the season needing to be suspended. They set their contingency (and priority) to allow them to recoup the millions lost by having to delay the start of the season.
I’m sure no one expected half a team to go down and worse that there was the possibility of spreading the virus to visiting teams (and perhaps, worse, via a clubhouse employee) less than four days into the season. So now two teams will have lost 6 games that may or may not be fully made-up and more importantly, with just the beginning of all teams traveling to unfamiliar cities and stadiums across the country.
The question is how many more teams and positive results will MLB be willing to allow with all their built in safe practices to continue playing. And does anyone seriously think that adding a dozen compliance officers to monitor the situation Or even worse, before any player/coach/ personnel comes down with serious symptoms that truly become life threatening. Don’t forget Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriquez is dealing with complications with his heart from Covid-10 as we speak.
The season is still “barely plausible” but one more outbreak would be fatal.
Just relax guys… .no need to worry unless Covid spreads and infects more teams and 5+ players each… I don’t get how MLB is not putting in a stringent bubble like the NHL.
I don’t know the whole stotry but it could be a number of irresponsible Marlins players that started this crap… in that case, if they can’t stay in a safe bubble, just screw them!! The season can go on without them!!!
Can’t wait to see how the NHL playoffs goes… seems like they do have a plan in place where players stay in a controlled environment and I assume all personnel serving them got proper PPE’s.
Enough with the bubble talk. The NHL is finishing just the playoffs. The MLB has 60 games, playoffs, 1800 players in the pool, coaches, personnel, and plays outdoors where weather becomes an issue. The bubble idea was never a viable option.
MLB could have made a bubble work. 3 bubble cities…1 per region. Dome or retractable roof. Multiple games a day. Only need to bubble the 25-30 active members of team. The pool of players done in other location. Reduce travel costs also. If you don’t make playoffs team leaves at end of season.
Let’s go over this again…
Baseball games and teams play nearly every single day, NBA and NHL teams do not. Arizona and Texas gets extremely hot, so only night games would be played. Florida rains a lot.
You need 15 fields nearly every single day. NBA and NHL can rotate between a few venues. It was hard enough to deliver a AAA stadium like Buffalo. Baseball would have needed 3 hub cities and it’s extremely doubtful they had the venues to do it.
hate the Marlins. hate em.
Poor Blue Jays. What a mess.
Thank God this season is only 2 months and won’t mess up 2021. Only saving grace.
I’m not at all confident that 2021 is safe yet.
This kind of headache only helps the young Jays.
I agree. Helps Bo and Randal recover from injury and re-focuses the young guys struggling at the plate to start the year.
Baseball has a *Florida Man* problem.
That team needs to be punished in the severest way imaginable.
You’ve go to be kidding me. Meanwhile the rest of the league is carrying on, getting better, getting reps and playing competitive games as we sit on our hands.
Phillies are done. Even if their season isn’t canceled, they can’t come back from this. They’re getting ice cold and will have to get their timing back. J.T. Realmuto trade is now one of the worst in Phillies history because he only played a season and 3 games. The 3 games the Phillies did play were pretty terrible. It’s all super depressing to be a Phillies fan right now.
Christ Von, ya gotta take a step back and chill.
Haha. I’m sorry, but It’s super depressing. The Phillies can’t afford this. It’s the right move to put them on ice, but all this waiting is going to hurt them. And they already looked awful in that first series. Even if they extend J.T. that trade is historically bad now. They will almost certainly have less than 60 games now, and their schedule was already seen as one of the hardest in the league. There is absolutely no reason to be optimistic as a Phillies fan right now. It’s not important in the scheme of things of course, and I’m just hoping everyone involved recovers quickly, but man….so much excitement for baseball just ruined…potentially because of another team’s reckless actions.
I’m a Braves fan, so I’m biased the other way: Not playing the Blue Jays/Yankees is a win overall if win percentage becomes the deciding factor. You could win 29 games out of 50 with the Braves winning 34 out of 60, and win the division, despite playing Baltimore and not the Yankees and Blue Jays. It’s not going to be fair no matter what.
Look at the bright side. The Phillies now have a seven game non-losing streak.
These games are postponed, not canceled. If the Phillies are ever able to play, they will have to play a bunch of 7-inning double headers against the Yankees and Blue Jays in a shortened amount of time using a lot of backup players. It’s unfair for all teams involved including the Yankees and Blue Jays.
You do know that I was being facetious, right?
Oh absolutely. Apologies. I was replying to Outfield Dunsel there. Your comment was hilarious and sad, but true. I give it a thumbs up.
Von this could be a blessing in-disguise.
The struggling players can get re-set. The team can scoreboard watch and see exactly what they must do and what they need moving forward. They will know what is in-front of them when they return to action. They might also benefit from the 7-inning games.
Glass half full thoughts for ya.
MLB may have overreacted or may have acted in an abundance of caution. We don’t even know if these Phillies employees had any contact with the Marlins or their clubhouse. But suspect MLB wants to see if any players eventually test positive.
There is no way MLB can make up all these games. May have to just live with each team getting as many games as possible and playoffs may be determined by winning percentage and not just win totals.
The sun is setting.
Maybe it is in your time zone. It’s only 12:14pm(PST) here. Got another 8 hours before the sun sets.
Can’t the play virtually using XBox or something ? This would solve a lot of issues. Baseball is rigged anyway just ask anyone
Phils/Jays live tonight on MLB The Show 2020. At least there will be fans at the game!
Just keep playing the Jays. Ive enjoyed the series thus far.
Season ends in less than a week
Wanna bet?
You can’t bet with Setzer. You may get Joker’s Death.
i dont even care if our team doesnt play anymore the rest if the year. let the other 28 play. no reason the Marlins of all teams should ruin the year for everybody.
Challenge is reconfiguring the postseason again. Do you still take the top 2 teams from the NL East? Who do they play instead of the Marlins? That’s more schedule disparity. I don’t disagree, its just not going to be fair no matter what (as I said in a comment above)
I really want details. Right now I have more contempt for the Marlins than the Astros.
We know nothing. I don’t believe unconfirmed rumors about strip clubs. If true, then I’m almost with you. I still have more contempt for the Astros, but I’d really hate the Marlins too.
i certainly dont believe its a strip club because that’s just because of the Williams buzz, but i can believe they went out to dinner or someting somewhere. if it was a strip club thats up there with Williams and Gobert levels of stupid.
Such a bummer. Fingers crossed for the Phils to be able to play at some point.
If you morons would just wear a mask and practice social distancing like the rest of the planet this could be mitigated
The rest of the planet? My brother sent me a picture of a corner bar in Queens (he described it as some kind of Salsa dancing party with one guy dancing on the hood of a car) as he was driving by that was packed in and outside with few people wearing masks.
I do get you point, though. I’m surprised so many players on the Astros and Dodgers didn’t even consider social distancing when the benches cleared.
I was referring to the entire country. The amount of people that protested wearing masks and then got quite sick is disturbing
Steveo,
Masks don’t do a great job of preventing the wearer from getting the illness, they do a much better job of preventing someone who is sick from spreading the illness.
Not wearing a mask is a selfish imbecilic act. I don’t know how else to say it.
I couldn’t agree more!
I agree, steveo37. We often hear ballplayers refer to themselves as “grown men.” It would help if they would act the part. Anyone who has watched games on TV has seen ballplayers standing shoulder to shoulder at the dugout rail, not wearing masks, spitting, always spitting. As far as I can tell, managers, coaches, and front office executives are powerless to teach these avatars of manly independence that part of being “grown” is accepting responsibility for the consequences of their conduct on the lives of others, and adopting conduct that might mitigate the harm their indifference might cause.
Baseball has a difficult decision ahead: do they pull the plug on the Marlins (and possibly the Phillies, too), or allow further outbreaks that will end the season throughout MLB?
I wonder if the ultimate solution for the Marlins is to waive the 40-man rules, cobble together a team from the alternate team and waiver wire/FA pickups, and use the coaching staff from the alternate team to operate as the Marlins team until, one by one, the regular Marlins are cleared and exit the quarantine.
Hopefully, the Phillies situation is resolved after the weekend, and I think we all hope without any positives beyond the current coach and clubhouse staff.
There’s no reason to pull the plug. This is why there is a 60 player pool. The depth of a team’s pool and how well that team guards against the virus should do better than teams that don’t.
From your comment ctyank7, the nation would have to stop, for example. food production if a few workers tested positive. But we don’t do this. If one plant gets hit others keep going while those that are infected clean up and resume.
Losing Marlins games was one thing, but now all the game cancellations are messing with my fantasy team, so it’s time to take this seriously.
Now that’s the best post on here. 🙂
At least Miami doesn’t have much in the way of fantasy value on their roster. I lost Realmuto for a week so far at a weak position for reinforcements.
So lets review — this week and weekend for postponements—
Phils lose 6 games, plus maybe 3 more in Miami
Marlins lose 5 games and maybe 3 more in Miami
Nats lose 3 games this weekend
Jays lose 4 games vs Philly
Yanks lose 2 games
Orioles lose 2 games
equals 28 possible games
That is one heck of a domino effect — get out the duct tape Manfred.
One Marlin in a strip club—very unlikely boys.
They should just have the Jays play the Nationals this weekend and that mitigates most of the missed games, oustide of Miami/Philadelphia. Considering Miami/Philly are supposed to play each other the first of next week, that buys a lot of time for those teams.
Dead Zone Season 2 Episode 14.
Just watch it.
How about we let the Phillies pick any one player from the Marlins as compensation for the Fish ruining the start to the season. A little frontier justice, since awarding them a tie breaker for the playoffs, when the Marlins are involved, is a joke in itself.
can we have Sixto back?
All this animosity is good for the young Jays core. They’ll get extra reps in the cage and the pitchers will get extra time to build up stamina.
Adversity?
Covid has been really mean to the Blue Jays.
The Jays are taking the brunt of the hostility towards MLB. If anything they deserve more support, not errant finger pointing.
I suspect the current punching bag is the Marlins. Kinda took the bullseye and ran with it.
I never saw the Blue Jays as having the bulleye – more a target for laughs and pity.
Going to take the glass half full approach to this news; MLB is now being necessarily cautious about even one or two infections. This is the route they should’ve taken over the weekend with the Marlins. Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson.
Wonder how many total games have been postponed? In a short season, make ups could get tricky.
It didn’t take the Marlins long to blow up the season. 28 games already lost and who knows how many more. How long before another dominoes scenario starts. This season was a joke before it really began. Can we just dissolve the Marlins franchise right now?
I guess double headers for the Phillies and Marlins for the rest of the season.