Another day, more bad news for the St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals were dealing with three more positive COVID-19 tests on Friday and now have more bad news today. What’s new?

The St. Louis Cardinals have been in a horrible situation. First, the team was stopped after they got an initial two positive COVID-19 tests last week. Then, just hours before the team was set to resume play on Friday, they got another three positive tests.

At first thought, most fans feared the worst. Another week off games, more widespread positives, and more lost hope for the 2020 season.

Despite what one national reporter (Jon Heyman) has said, Sunday may not be a day of good news for the team.

The upcoming Pirates-Cardinals series has been canceled.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) August 9, 2020

The biggest worry was that the players who tested negative on Monday and Tuesday of last week (Austin Dean and Ryan Helsley) would pass the virus to the other players. The team did have practices this week and it seems that the situation has gotten worse.

This post will be updated, but for now, we don’t know how many new positive tests the team has. The series against the Pirates wouldn’t have been postponed if the team came back all negative.

With #Pirates series about to be officially postponed, next #stlcards scheduled game is doubleheader Thursday in Detroit. There is some concern that team will have gone two weeks between games, so many days without field work, and shouldn't be asked to return to a doubleheader.
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) August 9, 2020

This is all just tough to follow. The Cardinals will have a very tough time reaching 60 games this year even if they return to play on Thursday.

Cancelation of #StLCards and #Pirates means Cardinals now must play 55 games in 49 days to reach 60. Even with 7-inning DHs, good luck with that.
— Scott Miller (@ScottMillerBbl) August 9, 2020

The first thing the Cardinals need to do is put a lid on the spread of the virus. Only when they are absolutely sure they have stopped the spread of the virus can they even begin to think about returning to play.

Last time around, the Cardinals resumed play at their next convenience after two straight days of negative tests. Clearly, that wasn’t enough to beat the incubation period of the virus. I don’t see how the team could try the same thing again this time. Canceling the Pirates series was a given if there were more positives today.

MLB officially postpones #STLCards series vs Pirates "in light of the most recent positive test results, MLB and the Club believe it is prudent to conduct additional testing while players and staff are quarantined before the team returns to play."
— Rob Rains (@RobRains) August 9, 2020

The MLB’s statement here is not very committal. Clearly, continuing to test staff and players while quarantining is the right move, but this statement doesn’t say if there were any new tests today, it also puts no timeline on a potential return.

I can’t say I’m surprised that such a great organization like the MLB put out a meaningless statement, but this statement neither helps nor hurts the immediate future of the Cardinals.

What we have learned today is not a death sentence for the Cardinals in 2020. It won’t be easy for them moving forward, but they still have time to have a somewhat normal season. They just need to get all of this behind them and play as many games as they can.

Next. Another trip around the merry-go-round of pain. dark

For now, we have no clue about when the Cardinals will play again. If they play Thursday and are able to play uninterrupted, it isn’t unreasonable to think they could get to 50-55 games in total for 2020. If that happens, switching the NLC to winning percentage makes sense. If the team ends up playing less than 50 games, it’ll be hard to think about what the league will do.

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