Baltimore Orioles not playing tonight (updated x2)

Commissioner Rob Manfred announced last night that the Baltimore Orioles game tonight in Miami has been postponed. There was talk about playing today at Camden Yards (either one game or a doubleheader) with the O’s as the visiting team in their home park, but that’s been scrapped. Manfred on the situation:

Our first concern obviously is the health of the players and their families and making sure that we do everything possible to minimize the spread of the virus among our employees. We’ve been fortunate so far. We’ve done tens of thousands of tests, our positive rate has been 0.4 percent, so we feel like the protocols have worked pretty well.

Not withstanding that fact, we have made some decisions. The Miami Marlins will not play their two games in Miami tonight and tomorrow. We’re doing some additional testing. If the testing results are acceptable, the Marlins will resume play in Baltimore on Wednesday against the Orioles.

Quote Courtesy of Roch Kubatko, MASNsports

The Orioles are scheduled to play Miami on Wednesday and Thursday nights at Camden Yards. Those games of course are previously scheduled, and are Oriole home games. Now what could theoretically happen is that assuming Miami is cleared to play, perhaps they do a doubleheader on Wednesday (at Camden Yards) with Miami as the home team, and another doubleheader Thursday with the Orioles as the home team.

Whether both teams and the union would approve of two doubleheaders in a row is another story. That would certainly put the Orioles at a disadvantage going into a weekend series with division foe, Tampa. More realistically, I think you put those two games on the back burner and play one or both of them at the end of the season if need be. Either that or find a common off day and play a doubleheader.

For the record, the Orioles have adhered to all of the agreed-upon guidelines in terms of social distancing, masks, and putting themselves in essence in a bubble while on the road. The issue of course lies with the Miami Marlins. I would submit that baseball fans, players, coaches, etc. everywhere should be looking at them with contempt when they played on Sunday in Philadelphia knowing that the virus was spreading in their clubhouse. Infections are going to happen. It’s how you handle them that makes the difference. They handled it about as poorly as anyone could. More as we hear it.

Update: We’re hearing that the league has now at least temporarily suspended the Miami Marlins’ season. So that would wipe out tomorrow and Thursday’s games between the O’s and Miami at Camden Yards. It’s unclear what the league will do moving forward, however at this time canceling or suspending the MLB season as a whole doesn’t appear to be on the table.

There are all kinds of ideas being thrown around, including one that has the NY Yankees coming to Baltimore for games tomorrow and Thursday evenings. NY was otherwise supposed to have been here for three games next week – Monday-Wednesday. Again, that’s just an idea. It’s unclear if that means that perhaps things could shift regarding Miami by then, and maybe they could play here and just swap series’…?

MLB appears to not be overly concerned about one team playing a few fewer games than others. So if someone ends up playing 55 games, that’s fine – they’ll do standings by win percentages. And in a scenario like what we’re seeing this year, I think that’s smart. I’m not sure they planned for an entire team to have it’s season suspended, but here we are. More as we hear it.

Update II: MLB has announced that the New York Yankees will be coming to Baltimore tomorrow and Thursday night to take on the O’s at Camden Yards. This replaces the Miami series. Presumably both games start at 7:30 PM.