It didn’t take long for the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball to cancel Monday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies. After news broke that the Miami Marlins had an outbreak of COVID-19 within their ranks, the Phillies, who just played them over the weekend, is the primary risk.
Despite Philadelphia fumigating their visiting locker room, where the Miami Marlins were being hosted, the Yankees likely don’t feel comfortable staying in that space. Health is the number one priority for players, and with the Phillies administering tests, we will have to wait for the results.
Tonight’s Yankees-Phillies game is cancelled, source tells The Athletic.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 27, 2020
This test will hopefully give us some information on how the league will proceed with further issues like this. The tests administered to the Phillies will likely not be known until Monday evening, but other games will likely be played.
Some have used the word “postponement instead” of cancellation, as a game could be played later at night theoretically if the test returned negative. Otherwise, the Yankees will have to move the game to Tuesday and the Phillies will have to utilize a team compose a taxi squad players. Of course, this was a risk going into the regular season, but there’s not much they can do but utilize reserve options in the meantime.
The solution would be to host doubleheaders at the end of the season to make up for lost games. Alternatively, the Yankees will have to face off against second-tier options. Of course, this will give them a competitive advantage, so pushing the games back would be the fairest scenario.