Rooting for beleaguered baseball to finish season

It’s a good thing MLB isn’t a wounded animal. It would be put out of its misery. Humanely, of course. It is entirely reasonable to suggest MLB should shut down after not one, but two of its teams — the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals — have been ravaged by a COVID-19 outbreak. Baseball’s schedule has been damaged almost beyond recognition, not just for the Marlins and Cardinals but for the teams that were supposed to play them. The Pirates will feel that pain for the first time this week; their threegame series in in St. Louis has been postponed. That’s probably a good thing for the Pirates, easily the worst team in baseball, with a 3-13 record after being swept at home by the Detroit Tigers over the weekend.

OK, so maybe this isn’t a good time to make fun of Bob Nutting’s cheaply constructed team.

Certainly, there is nothing funny about what the coronavirus has done to the integrity of this baseball season. Integrity?

What integrity?

Take the Cardinals, a perennial contender who has made the postseason 13 times and won two World Series and played in two others since 2000, not to mention finished ahead of the Pirates in the standings every year since 1999. They have not played since July 29 and have postponed more than twice as many games (13) as they have played (5). To get to 60 games for a full virus-impacted season, they would have to play 55 games in 46 days. “The math seems a bit challenging,” Cardinals president John Mozeliak told the St. Louis media.

The Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies also are looking at brutal finishes. The Marlins, who spent a week locked in their Philadelphia hotel rooms after the virus hit, went nine days without a game before returning last Tuesday with a bunch of big-league retreads and minor-league players to start, amazingly enough, a fivegame winning streak. The Phillies went eight days without a game after their July 26 game against the Marlins.

There were a total of 24 games postponed through

Sunday because of COVID-19. There hasn’t been a day since July 26 — the first weekend of the season — that at least one game hasn’t been postponed. What happens if there are more? Really, what happens if there is another outbreak?

I repeat: Integrity? What integrity?

Baseball can’t just blame the virus. It made two big mistakes in dealing with the outbreaks. One, it allowed the Marlins to play the Phillies in that July 26 game after four Miami players had tested positive. That led to a total of 18 Marlins players getting sick. And two, it allowed the Cardinals to leave their Milwaukee hotel rooms after being quarantined for five days when the medical experts warned that was too soon. That led to a total of nine Cardinals players and seven staff members coming down with the virus. “Have to be careful when returning once your team has an outbreak,” epidemiologist Zachary Binney of Emory University in Atlanta tweeted. “Rushing is risky. My advice? Wait until ‘results’ are available from tests you took 7+ days after quarantine started. Not ‘two days of negative tests in a row.’ That shows a complete misunderstanding of the virus.”

Baseball also has been hurt — literally — in ways beyond just COVID-19. Arm injuries to pitchers are spiking because of the start-stopstart again nature of this crazy season. Stephen Strasburg, Corey Kluber, Miles Mikolas, Justin Verlander, Shohei Ohtani and Charlie Morton just on Sunday are among the many well-known pitchers to go down. The Pirates also have been touched, losing Clay Holmes, Kyle Crick, Michael Feliz and Nick Burdi to arm injuries and Mitch Keller to a core issue. Would it surprise anyone if the Cardinals have injuries after being off for so long?

But MLB forges ahead.

I get it. It has millions and millions of reasons to play the games. The owners and players already have lost a fortune because of the shortened season. Neither side is eager to lose more. That’s why MLB has strengthened its virus protocols, including adding a compliance officer on the road for every team. It’s also why MLB is trying to get in all of the postponed games with — the thought makes me ill — seven-inning doubleheaders. Whatever it takes, I guess.

I’m also glad the season is continuing for a couple of selfish reasons. One, I love watching the games — even when the Pirates play. And two, it gives me hope that if baseball can somehow navigate its way through its season, the NFL will find a way to do so, as well. I’m trying to stay optimistic despite Mike Tomlin saying last week, “I don’t know that I’m extremely confident [there will be a season].” I just can’t imagine this country without professional football.

But baseball?

I’m hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.