Ryan Boricki picked up his first win of the season, as Toronto belted out four solo homers to bring themselves back to .500 on the season. However, this wasn't the big news for the MLB.
The Miami Marlins who are one of two teams to call 'Covid Central' aka Florida home, have tested positive for the virus.
The MLB canceled two of the Marlins games against the Orioles and the Yankees game at Philadelphia, according to Tyler Kepner of the New York Times.
"While league officials said there were no plans to suspend or cancel the season — which began just last Thursday — two games were postponed Monday after the Miami Marlins learned that at least 14 members of the team’s traveling party, including 12 players, had tested positive for the virus, " wrote Kepner.
Americans have had the toughest time following any type of requirements and have shown their stubbornness. The MLB has stated that it does not plan to cancel the season if teams get the virus. Former Yankees shortstop and executive for the Marlins released a statement.
“The health of our players and staff has been and will continue to be our primary focus as we navigate through these uncharted waters, take a collective pause and try to properly grasp the totality of this situation," said Jeter.
The United States has tried to rush reopening of the country. There have been protests and lawsuits against the government for people upset the government would put people's lives before the liberties of a select self centered few.
Dr. Michael Saag, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham weighted in on the situation. “I think it’s another indictment of the United States’s overall approach to Covid, We find ourselves impatient. And that’s what I think we’re suffering from, both in terms of not just Major League Baseball but for every other thing we’re trying to do.”
The Marlins will be tested in Philadelphia, where the team is currently staying. The team has players on standby but unless it is deemed safe, those players will not join the rest of the team.
Dave Martinez, manager for the Nationals, talked about the what was going on. “This thing really hits home now that you see half a team get infected and go from one city to another, I’ll be honest with you, I’m scared, I really am.”
Kansas City first baseman O'Hearn said, “It seems like it’s spreading like wildfire. It’s definitely a scary situation. Everyone realizes the kind of risk we’re taking.”
Of course it's scary and yeah, it's spreading like wildfire. Several states in the southern US didn't want to close and opened too soon. Citizens across the entire country did not and still haven't taken the virus seriously. It's probably the reason why Americans are restricted from traveling to most countries.
Kepner wrote, "On Friday, the first day of games for most teams, the league announced that only six of 10,939 samples it had tested that week (or 0.05 percent) had returned new positives. But most of those tests were conducted while teams were training at their home parks, before traveling to road sites."
Sounds like the league is slipping in their testing. The players should be tested daily. With the team still playing across the United States, this is a clear sign that sports need to stay in bubbles. The NFL has been looking to do the same thing as the Majors. Maybe this will get them to follow the NHL and NBA to save the season.
Dr Saag continued, “I’m personally concerned about schools reopening in hot spot states, and we know where they are. I think Major League Baseball is kind of the vanguard on this, and the other collections of people — be it students or campuses or the N.B.A. perhaps — it’s all going to follow suit because we’re in such a big hurry.”
The commissioner of the MLB admitted he had thought about isolating players for the season but he knew that players would refuse to play and the league is dying. He needed to make a decision to do what was best for the league.
Commissioner Manfred said about the idea of keeping players limited to the hotel and stadium, “So then we realized, gee, that’s pretty tough. So then we started talking about including families, and you realize as you get into that phase that you get into quarantine numbers that are insane.”
Manfred admitted that they thought about hub games in Texas, Arizona, and Florida but decided against it. Which was probably a good thing, since those are all hot spots for the virus.
Pitcher Adam Ottavino said Monday, “You just see comments, ‘Oh, this was expected. To me, OK, so, well, if it was expected, it’s just so reckless in my opinion. But a lot of guys didn’t want to do the bubble. I would’ve been willing to do the bubble. I thought, personally, that was a no-brainer. But I don’t speak for everybody."
The problem is not everyone was willing to play in a bubble. Players weren't willing to make their millions of it meant having to comply with health and safety regulations that kept them from doing things as normal.
Manfred doesn't see the Marlins situation as anything dire. In a statement Monday he said, Manfred said, “We knew that we were going to have positives at some point in time. I remain optimistic that the protocols are strong enough that it will allow us to continue to play, even through an outbreak like this, and complete our season.”
Back in July Manfred sounded a little different, “If we have a team or two that’s really decimated with a number of people who had the virus and can’t play for any significant period of time, it could have a real impact on the competition and we’d have to think very, very hard about what we’re doing.”
For now it appears that the only thing Manfred is thinking about is raking in the cold hard cash, regardless of who pays the price. If not handled correctly, this could get the United States to cancel sports indefinitely until the virus is contained.
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