Miami forging ahead under trying times to Opening Day

The Marlins have two weeks until Opening Day against the Philadelphia Phillies. The next 10 days will focus on intrasquad scrimmages before two exhibition games against the Atlanta Braves, which will be televised July 21-22.

In terms of time, the Marlins on Friday were exactly where they left off when the coronavirus pandemic shut down spring training.

Two weeks away from Opening Day. Fourteen days left to finalize any roster decisions, make any lineup adjustments, get any final work in before the season officially gets underway.

So, naturally, the Marlins now are getting the team prepped the same way they were back then, or at least the best they can given the parameters.

Unlike when spring training stopped, though, the Marlins have only had about a week’s worth of organized team practices leading up to the twoweek mark of camp ending following a 17-week layoff. For comparison, they were four weeks into spring training when the coronavirus pandemic put things on hold.

Also unlike in prevous years, the Marlins (like the rest of MLB) are maneuvering through baseball practices during the time of COVID-19. Practices were staggered over the first week, with about 20 players each in the morning and afternoon sessions before being merged into one group over the past couple days.

“It’s been three-and-a-half months,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “No matter how much work you’ve done to be ready for this — which our guys have been pretty good at — it’s still been three-and-a-half months since you’ve seen a hitter in the box or had to deal with a first-andsecond situation, all those little things that I think will become

Florida reporting 11,433 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, the state’s secondhighest single day total. Florida currently has more than 240,000 confirmed cases and 4,100 deaths. As of Thursday, Florida’s case total was the fourth-highest in the country, according to a New York Times database.

The sports world came to a screeching halt on March 11 when the NBA elected to suspend their season. Several leagues, inside and outside of the U.S., soon followed suit.

Despite the state’s surge in COVID-19 cases, the WNBA and NBA still plan on resuming play in Florida. The NBA will restart on July 30 while the WNBA has yet to finalize a date but aims to be ready by late July as well.

Opening Day of a 60game MLB season is set for July 23 and MLS began a tournament on Wednesday at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando.