Morning Mound Visit: Mets postpone two games after positive tests

The Mets have postponed two games after positive tests for a player and another employee came back on Thursday. New York was scheduled to finish a four-game series against the Marlins on Thursday and begin a three-game series at home against the Yankees on Friday. Now, those are two more games to add to an already bloated schedule.

If more positive tests come back on Friday, there’s no telling when the Mets will take the field again. The Cardinals missed over two weeks after a team-wide outbreak. The hope is that these are the only two positive cases in the Mets organization not just because it will allow them to get back to the field but because it will mean fewer people have gotten sick.

These latest cases don’t threaten to put the final nail in the coffin of the 2020 season. If MLB didn’t cancel or even suspend the season when two teams had half their roster test positive, it will take something catastrophic for the season to end prematurely.

They do, however, illuminate just how messy and risky this proposition is. The 2020 season started on July 23 which means that the season is 30 days old. There have been just six days where there wasn’t a game with a COVID-19 related postponement. One of those July 23, when just two games were played and another was because the Reds had a scheduled off day on Monday of this week. So, since the Marlins outbreak, there’s been one day where every team was eligible to play.

All these postponements are going to catch up with teams eventually. The Cardinals are scheduled to play everyday between September 10 and 27, and they’re supposed to play 23 games in those 17 days. They’re supposed to play 32 games in September altogether. There’s almost no way that’s going to happen. Some of those games will be canceled either because of rain or COVID or because the Cardinals decide to forfeit some games against the Royals to get a day off.

Still, the Cardinals and other teams are going to be run ragged in the final weeks of the season because the full repercussions of playing during a pandemic haven’t been felt yet.

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