Welcome to this Sunday night emergency edition of Becky Yells About Baseball! We’re barely one week into Major League Baseball playing games, and, folks, it’s as big of a hot mess as you’d expect when groups of people play games against other groups of people during a global pandemic.

Miami Marlins

• 21 total positive tests, including 18 players, last week (however they had no new positive tests today)
• They got shut down from playing games through today; were set to play the Washington Nationals after coming home from playing the Philadelphia Phillies
• So like a big line of dominoes…the Marlins home opening day game against the Baltimore Orioles was postponed, the Phillies home game against the New York Yankees was postponed; those four teams had their games postponed again on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; so instead on Wednesday and Thursday, the O’s played the Yanks in Baltimore
• The Nats said a collective “Nope” and their series was postponed
• AND THEN THE INFECTED PLAYERS AND COACHES TOOK BUSES FROM PHILLY TO MIAMI, FLORIDA, WHICH IS CONSIDERED THE NEW HOT SPOT FOR THE VIRUS
• Rumors have it that the many of the players went out in Atlanta while they were in Georgia playing the Atlanta Braves in exhibition games during Summer Camp
• Two players (one from the Orioles and another from the Cleveland Indians) HAVE BEEN TRADED TO THE MARLINS. THERE SHOULD BE A NO TRADE CLAUSE TO ANY TEAMS THAT HAVE COVID OUTBREAKS

Philadelphia Phillies

• One coach and one clubhouse staff member have tested positive
• Their weekend series against the Toronto Blue Jays was postponed; I think they’re going to resume play tomorrow against the Yankees

St. Louis Cardinals

• Two players tested positive at first, and now they’re at four positive tests and four inconclusive tests; a new report came out tonight that there might be more positive tests
• Originally Friday night’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers was postponed and rescheduled as a double header today (when there were just a few positive tests) but now the entire weekend series is off. They’re still going to travel to Detroit tomorrow for a four game series against the Tigers.

Other things

• Eduardo Rodriguez, pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, is shut down for the season after experiencing a heart issue—myocarditis—as a result from COVID.
• Brewers outfielder Lorenzo Cain has opted out of the rest of the season. I don’t blame him.
• New York Mets outfielder—and namesake of my fantasy baseball team—Yoenis Cespedes had his own way of telling the team he was opting out: by not showing up at the field, packing up his hotel room, and telling his agent he was out.
• Rob Manfred, MLB commissioner, came out last week and told the MLBPA executive director Tony Clark “that if the sport doesn’t do a better job of managing the coronavirus, it could shut down for the season.” (ESPN) Basically his way of saying “I will turn this car around!!” Also to come out of the same story: “Networks broadcasting MLB games have been alerted to look at possible alternate programming after this weekend should the league shut down, sources told ESPN’s Keith Olbermann.” (ESPN)

So once the league gets shut down this week, although NESN has Boston Bruins hockey to show, they’ll go back to showing games from the 2013 and 2018 World Series. Baseball was fun while it lasted. Now I’m just speculating that the league will shut down this week; I have absolutely no clue what’s going to happen, and it seems like Manfred doesn’t either.

I’m not surprised at all by the outbreaks, and MLB is acting like, “Wait, this could actually happen?!”

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred remains confident the 2020 season can continue, telling ESPN’s Karl Ravech on Saturday that “there is no reason to quit now” despite positive coronavirus tests that have led to the postponement of 17 games in 10 days.

“We are playing,” Manfred told Ravech. “The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable.”

Manfred acknowledged Saturday that not every team might play all 60 games this season, and winning percentage could be used to determine playoff teams.

ESPN

He’s not a quitter BECAUSE HE DOESN’T HAVE TO PLAY AND BE IN THE CLUBHOUSES AND TRAVEL DURING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. At what point does Manfred tell everyone to take their ball and go home? Is this just going to turn into natural selection in order to create some sort of revenue since the owners were crying poor from the lack of fan revenue this season?

I know that things are fluid—I hate that term—and you kind of have to take things day by day, but you kind of have to have a plan to pull the plug and what constitutes shutting the league down.

Thoughts? Do you think the league will get shut down/when do you think it will be?