The Phillies might finally be able to play ball
After over a week of waiting after nearly the entire Miami Marlins team tested positive for COVID-19 during their opening series in Philadelphia, the Phillies appear to be returning on Monday.
Initial reports were that the team, which has had no players test positive since the season started, would not play the Yankees series. Now, Joel Sherman is reporting that the Yankees series has been reinstated.
The team and MLB have not officially announced whether the games are back on for the Phillies.
Ken Rosenthal added earlier on Saturday that the Phillies may need to call up some pitchers who have been working out in Lehigh Valley, as most of the major league staff hasn’t been able to work out at the stadium in over a week.
But, the Phillies may have to lose some of their major league talent, or, at least some of the guys who were on the big league roster for the first three games.
Phillies, with doubleheaders likely when they resume, might not want to risk health of certain pitchers. Yet, none can go on COVID IL because they have no cases among players. So to bring up pitchers from alternate site, they would need to risk losing some currently on roster. https://t.co/rXLyEDXuEo
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2020
Players can not start and stop the season for a week at a time when there’s an outbreak. The Marlins incident nearly, and may ultimately, cancel the season before its even gotten going.
For Phillies fans, the week without baseball has been draining and disappointing. After all of the hype with intrasquad games and some glimmers of hope from the offense, it’s all been completely washed away by the Marlins cases.
If they ever come out of this hiatus and the season does continue, what we’ve gone through is something that should have never happened. The Marlins should have been more careful, baseball should have stopped the series earlier, and the testing should have been better.
Hopefully baseball has learned from this and will apply their new understanding of what will happen when the next player tests positive.