Cardinals report additional positive tests for coronavirus; series vs. Cubs postponed
Friday night’s game was postponed “to allow for additional testing and to complete the contact tracing process,” MLB said in a statement. Later in the day, the rest of the Cardinals-Cubs series was also postponed, with MLB saying in a statement, “Out of an abundance of caution, and to ensure that all infected Cardinal players and staff members have been identified, the games between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on Saturday, August 8th and Sunday, August 9th have been postponed. Major League Baseball will continue to provide updates as they become available.”
The Cardinals, who last played July 30 at Minnesota, have played a league-low five games so far. After being cleared to leave their Milwaukee hotel, where noninfected personnel had been under self-isolation, they were permitted to return to St. Louis on Wednesday, following two straight days of full-squad testing with no positives. The team held a workout at Busch Stadium on Wednesday and another Thursday, by which time they had gone three straight days without a positive test.
Between the outbreaks among the Miami Marlins and Cardinals, baseball had seen at least one postponement for 12 straight days, including some days when six teams were idle. But that streak was poised to end Friday, until the latest Cardinals news came some seven hours before the scheduled first pitch.
The Cardinals’ prior postponements and the subsequent makeup games meant they were already scheduled to play 55 games in 52 days over the remainder of the season — a challenge that would only get tougher with additional lost games this weekend.
