Subway Series called off after Mets’ COVID results

NEW YORK — The Subway Series has been derailed. After two members of the Mets’ traveling party tested positive for COVID-19 in Miami on Thursday, MLB has now canceled all three games between the Yankees and Mets at Citi Field “out of an abundance of caution.”

The Yankees and Mets are scheduled to play again next weekend in the Bronx. They also have a common day off on Monday.

The Mets had their game Thursday night at Miami as well as Friday’s opener against the Yankees postponed on Thursday after the results were reported.

The Mets flew home Thursday night and are in New York, and the team said in a statement the traveling party was tested at Citi Field on Friday morning before being sent home to quarantine. The team does not plan to work out this weekend.

The team said those who tested positive or were identified as close contacts remained in Miami. It did not specify how many close contacts had been identified.

The league has now postponed 36 games this season because of positive tests with the Miami Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Cin

cinnati Reds and the Mets. The Yankees have twice had their schedule interrupted despite reporting no positive tests since Opening Day.

The Yankees’ second series of the season in Philadelphia was postponed when the Phillies were exposed to the Marlins, who ended up having 19 members of their traveling party test positive during the opening weekend series in Citizens Bank Park. The Yankees turned around and went to Baltimore, which was scheduled to host the Marlins, and got a two-game series while the Phillies and Marlins quarantined.

Thursday Aaron Boone said this was what they had to expect when MLB and the players decided to try to play an abbreviated season in the middle of a pandemic.

“I mean, it’s difficult. And as we’ve said, 2020 is like no other year and we know what we’ve signed up for,” Boone said. “We knew that at times, there’s going to be challenges. Obviously, we’ve already faced our own challenges with a couple of cancellations and doubleheaders. Other teams have obviously had it significantly worse with actual outbreaks and things.”

The positive tests are the first confirmed within the Mets organization since the season began. Right-hander Brad Brach missed preseason camp and confirmed he tested positive for the coronavirus.

MLB said Friday that seven of 12,485 samples collected over the past week from players and coaches returned positive COVID-19 results, a positive rate of 0.05%.

Three of the positives were players and four were staff members. Of all the samples collected by MLB this season, 0.1% have returned positive, and 19 teams have had a player or staff member test positive.

The Yankees haven’t been untouched by COVID-19 either.

DJ LeMahieu and Luis Cessa tested positive before reporting to summer training camp and were held at their home until they had clear tests. Aroldis Chapman tested positive the first week of summer training camp and just returned to the active roster. The Yankees were the first team with a confirmed COVID-19 case back in March, when two minorleague players tested positive right when baseball shut down.

Since the season fully opened its pandemic-shortened, 60-game season on July 24, there has only been one day when there was not at least one postponement because of the coronavirus.