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St. Louis Cardinals: Thursday’s doubleheader canceled, no new positives

By Matt Graves

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - JULY 28: Tyler O'Neill #41 of the St. Louis Cardinals rounds the bases on his two-run home run against the Minnesota Twins during the fifth inning of the home opener at Target Field on July 28, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - JULY 28: Tyler O'Neill #41 of the St. Louis Cardinals rounds the bases on his two-run home run against the Minnesota Twins during the fifth inning of the home opener at Target Field on July 28, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /
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As the St. Louis Cardinals try to get back on the field, they received good and bad news on Monday. When could the team play again?

The fun just won’t stop for the St. Louis Cardinals. With each passing day, the gap between the games played by the hometown team and the rest of the league widens.

Amid the team’s second COVID-19 outbreak, there may be a way to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

After Sunday brought the news that the entire Pittsburgh series would be canceled through Wednesday, the Cardinals announced that their scheduled doubleheader on Thursday against the Tigers would also be canceled.

For now, this was a necessary evil. I say this because another piece of news today could’ve allowed the team to resume Thursday by the league’s own protocols.

On Monday, the team got back the tests from Sunday and found no new positives.

Per MLB’s protocol, they just need two consecutive days of negative tests to be able to play again. That is what they did last week, with the whole team testing negative on Monday and Tuesday. However, the positive tests returning on Friday clearly show that MLB’s protocol is not acceptable to ensure any outbreak is at bay.

This time around the Cardinals are going to be more careful.

By canceling Thursday’s games, the team could potentially play the first game of a three-game series against the White Sox in Chicago on Friday. Today, the White Sox opened up the door for the team to be even more careful than playing Friday.

Saturday’s game was scheduled to be a day game, but it was moved to later in the day.

This could allow the team to move Friday’s game to a doubleheader on Sunday and then get one final round of test results on Saturday before the first pitch.

The only problem with making Saturday the team’s first game back is that it would mean the team would’ve been off for a full two and a half weeks. That isn’t fair to the players, but given everything that has gone on, the Cardinals can’t squabble at a competitive disadvantage.

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Right now, the Cardinals could still get practices in starting on Thursday/Friday and then fly to Chicago for the series, but that will come into fruition later in the week. Assuming that the team gets no more positive test results and they don’t play until Saturday, that will be a week since their second round of positives. It will be many more days without a positive test than the MLB requires for them to return.

That sounds like the best plan for me at this point, but it’s contingent on no more positives.

Next. more bad news for the St. Louis Cardinals. dark

Whether the team returns Friday or Saturday, they are going to be hard-pressed to hit 60 games on the year. That isn’t the end of the world though.

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