The St. Louis Cardinals stay grounded for their trip to Chicago

With the possibility of an incubating positive still with the team, the St. Louis Cardinals are taking no chances on their way up to Chicago.

The return of your St. Louis Cardinals is almost here—we hope. Last weekend, the Cardinals were mere hours away from jumping on the field to face the Cubs when another positive test popped up.

Now, a week removed from that bad news, the team is scheduled to return to play with a doubleheader tomorrow against the White Sox in Chicago.

I understand that most fans won’t believe it until first pitch is thrown, but this triumphant return for the Cardinals will still happen even after a staffer tested positive on Thursday. It’s all thanks to the quarantining the team was doing all week. When the Cardinals take the field Saturday, they will (hopefully) be one week removed from their last positive test from a player.

To make sure that a third (and likely season-ending) outbreak is not going to happen, the team isn’t taking any chances with bringing the team back together before absolutely necessary. Primarily, that means they aren’t taking the team plane to Chicago.

In a way too literal sense, the Cardinals are taking a road trip to Chicago. The team rented 41 cars for all the players and staff who have been quarantining all week to drive up to Chicago. As odd as this change is, it is a very smart move by the organization.

Also, in 2020, should a story like this even surprise you?

The team has had to adapt at every turn, and this is just the latest in their long attempt to get back on the field.

It hasn’t been all bad though. The players certainly seem to be having fun with it, and the news that the entire team would be making the trip up I-55 today sparked a public debate about the best places to stop along the way.

As for who gets the first pick of the rental cars, we’ll need some investigative local journalism to give us some insight there.

The weirdness doesn’t stop there. Over the next five days, the Cardinals will play one doubleheader against the White Sox then two against the Cubs.

In the team’s updated schedule, it was revealed that the Cubs won’t have any games at Busch Stadium this year. Instead, the Cardinals will be the “home team” at Wrigley.

What could be more 2020 than the Cardinals playing home games at Wrigley Field?

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Along with all of the doubleheaders and home games away from home, the team will also feature a revamped roster with plenty of rookies including Dylan Carlson.

It’s going to be a weird rest of the season, but the team just needs to get back on the field for now. Whether or not they will perform well is a different discussion, but even if they lose every game the rest of the year, the Cardinals will be still playing.

The updated schedule released Friday has the Cardinals hitting 58 games on the season. While I’m sure fans of other teams may gripe that they aren’t playing all 60, 58 is plenty to be a credible season.

2020 just won’t stop being 2020. If things are weird, so be it. I just want the Cardinals back on the field playing; something we will likely get a lot of in the coming month and a half.