After almost a week in quarantine, the Miami Marlins now know their updated schedule
The Miami Marlins have been quarantined at their team hotel in Philadelphia since their series finale against the Phillies on Sunday, waiting to get their COVID-19 outbreak under control and for guidance from Major League Baseball to give them clarity about the immediate future of the team’s season.
On Saturday, the first day without a positive COVID-19 test result since the outbreak truly started to show itself on Sunday, the team learned its fate: For the immediate future, the Marlins are staying on the road.
MLB announced Saturday that the Marlins, who had 18 players and two coaching staff members test positive, will head to Baltimore to play four games in three days against the Orioles from Tuesday through Thursday before continuing the rest of their schedule as planned. That means continuing this extended road trip to play the New York Mets at Citi Field from Aug. 7-9 and then two games against the Toronto Blue Jays in Buffalo from Aug. 11-12.
The Marlins were originally supposed to play their four games against the Orioles this week, with two games in Miami and two games in Baltimore. The Marlins’ three-game series against the Washington Nationals this weekend was also postponed.
The 18 players who tested positive on Friday bused back to South Florida, where they remain quarantined at a single location, according to a source. Second baseman Isan Diaz, who consistently tested negative throughout the week, opted out of the season.
The other 14 on the active roster remain in Philadelphia and will bus to Baltimore, most likely Sunday or Monday, before the series against the Orioles. They will be joined by as many as 19 more players to round out the 30-man active roster and fill a three-player taxi squad.
The Marlins will be the home team for two of those four games, and there will be a doubleheader on one of those three days. All doubleheaders this season feature seven-inning games. No game times have been announced as of Saturday afternoon.
Miami’s three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies at Marlins Park, which was originally supposed to take place Tuesday through Thursday, will be rescheduled for later this season.
Around the league
The news came with MLB having to shuffle around schedules for multiple teams due to COVID-19 concerns.
The St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers had their games Friday and Saturday in Milwaukee postponed due to three Cardinals players testing positive. A doubleheader set for Sunday is still tentatively scheduled.
The Phillies, like the Marlins, have not played since Sunday out of “an abundance of caution,” as the league put it. No Phillies players have tested positive for COVID-19 since playing the Marlins, but three staff members (one coach, one home clubhouse staffer and one road clubhouse staffer) tested positive this week. The league in a release wrote that it believes two of those positive test results were false positives and that “it is unclear if the third individual contracted COVID-19 from Marlins players and staff based on the timing of the positive test.”
The Phillies are making up their home-and-home series against the Yankees from Monday through Thursday. No insight was given as to Philadelphia making up its three-game series against the Blue Jays that was supposed to take place this weekend.
This story was originally published August 1, 2020 at 4:33 PM.
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