Brewers-Cardinals series called off
The Milwaukee Brewers never dreamed it would be so difficult to play their first home game of the 2020 season.
After a round of rapid testing for COVID-19 produced four more positive results among the St. Louis Cardinals traveling party, one player and three staff members, the scheduled game Saturday against the Brewers at Miller Park was officially postponed.
It was the second consecutive day the Brewers saw their home opener called off because of positive COVID-19 tests with the Cardinals. And, before the day was done, it was announced the makeup doubleheader between the teams scheduled for Sunday also was off.
“It’s a waiting game,” Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns said Saturday afternoon, before the announcement of the doubleheader postponement. “We understand that Major League Baseball needs as much information as possible before making decisions about cancelling games.
“We’re prepared to play each and every single day until we’re told otherwise and that’s the way we’re going to approach it. We don’t know about tomorrow yet but we’ll be
prepared to play tomorrow until we’re told we’re not.”
MLB released the following information after the second postponement:
“After two Cardinals players tested positive, the entire team was tested in Milwaukee (Friday) using a rapid COVID-19 test and saliva samples also were sent to an MLB laboratory. The rapid tests indicated that one additional Cardinals player and multiple staff members may be positive. The results from the MLB PCR saliva tests will not be available until later in the day.
“Based on the results of the rapid tests conducted in Milwaukee, tonight’s scheduled game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Cardinals at Miller Park has been postponed. We will provide additional updates as information becomes available.”
Then came news of the doubleheader postponement, with MLB stating it was necessary “due to additional testing and monitoring” of the St. Louis players and staff members.
It will not be easy to make up the three postponements between the Brewers and Cardinals. They are scheduled to play again in Milwaukee from Sept. 14-16, then finish the season with four games against each other in St. Louis from Sept. 24-27, with no mutual off days before or after either series.
Because of an off day Thursday, the Brewers have not played a game since Wednesday night in Pittsburgh. Assuming they play their scheduled home game Monday night against the Chicago White Sox, they will have been off four days in a row.
As frustrating as it was to see his team’s home opener pushed back yet again, Stearns said he supported a vow made Saturday by commissioner Rob Manfred to continue playing despite the COVID-19 setbacks.
“If we can do this safely, I want to go forward, yes,” Stearns said. “I think the players want to play. Players want to
play; that’s why they are here. We have had a rocky start to this, and we have had a greater concentration of positives than we anticipated coming into this.
“I don’t know if the volume of positives has been greater; it’s probably been a little bit less. But the concentration has been concerning, and we need to figure out why that is.”
The Cardinals had two players test positive Friday morning, leading to the cancellation of the Brewers’ original home opener. With the additional results Saturday, they’ve had three players test positive as well as three staff members.
The Cardinals remained sheltered in place at the Pfister Hotel while rapid testing was done on their travel party, with the Brewers setting up resources at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Stearns said a couple of St. Louis coaches were present at Miller Park on the team’s off day Thursday but did not come in contact with support staff or Brewers team personnel.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we got any staff that was in the visiting
clubhouse tested,” Stearns said. “We also did a very robust and very deep cleaning of the visiting clubhouse, as we would in really any circumstance after a team leaves and before a subsequent team enters.
“Frankly, we were fortunate that more Cardinals didn’t come over to the clubhouse and over to the stadium on their off day.”
It was not surprising that the Saturday game was postponed, nor the Sunday doubleheader. The Miami Marlins were allowed to play at Philadelphia last Sunday despite having three positive tests and when it became a larger outbreak later, both teams were shut down and have not played since.
Had the Sunday doubleheader been played, Stearns was asked about the anxiety level his players might have experienced, knowing what happened after Miami was allowed to play in Philadelphia following positive tests.
“Look, I think the world has anxiety and fear right now,” Stearns said. “I don’t think it’s unique to baseball. This is something we’re all confronting and we’re all living our lives with, so yes, I think there’s a natural anxiety present for most people when you leave your homes.
“That anxiety is probably going to be heightened when you’re potentially coming to an encounter with people who’ve had exposure. That’s why our protocols are so important and that’s why adhering to our practices and being vigilant is really important.”
As for what it will take for baseball to continue the season without further major disruptions, Stearns said, “We have to be vigilant, and we have to follow our protocols. They are there for a reason, and we’ve continued to stress that we’re all responsible for this.
“This is not on any one person or any group of people to enforce. We are all adults and we all have to take individual responsibility to protect each other and ourselves. We have all the resources to do so. We have devoted as an organization a tremendous amount of resources to keeping everyone safe. It’s incumbent upon all of us to do our part and act responsibly.
“As we look around the industry, I think the overall positive rate probably is lower than we all would have anticipated going into this thing. The challenge we’re facing - and it’s a big challenge we need to understand it - is that the positives we have had are concentrated in smaller spaces and smaller groups.
“So, the positives we’ve had are not distributed equally across the industry. They seem to be occurring in a couple of clubs, which clearly indicates that there’s community spread within these clubs once someone gets it. So, I think we need to study carefully the practices that are in place in certain instances where there have been positives and no community spread and the practices that are in place where there have been positives and robust community spread, and we need to learn.
“If we can learn best practices and we can learn ways to keep everybody safe, that would clearly be really beneficial. We have to learn whether this is something that’s in our control or not.”