Baseball’s New Game Plan: Wait a Few Days and Hope for Good Health
Health is paramount, of course, and not the usual kind of health we talk about with the Mets. Two members of their traveling party tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday — one player and one staff member — and Major League Baseball has paused their season in an effort to prevent the spread.
Instead of hosting the Yankees this weekend for the first game of their annual interleague series, the Mets reported to Citi Field for testing on Friday morning. They are off until Monday at the earliest. Contact tracing, additional testing, waiting anxiously for results — all have joined pitching, hitting and fielding as essential parts of the game.
It was probably only a matter of time before in-season positive tests would penetrate one of the New York teams. Teams in Miami, St. Louis, Cincinnati and beyond already have grappled with the new reality. It stands to reason that, before long, the virus will crash the boundaries of the Western division teams, too.
Shoving 30 teams with sprawling rosters into a regular-season bubble was never realistic for Major League Baseball, which settled for a 60-game schedule with teams playing only within their geographic regions. That arrangement helped last week in the Central, when the Cardinals returned to play after two weeks off and traveled from St. Louis to Chicago in a caravan of 41 socially distanced rental cars.
For the Mets this week, there was no such luck.
They were in Miami when they learned of the positive tests, so they flew home Thursday night, leaving behind the two people who tested positive and others who may have been exposed to the virus. The Mets and the league determined that flying home would be safer than checking into another Miami hotel, and that the risk of further exposure in Florida would be greater than in New York.
Those on the flight were presumed to be at low risk of having the virus, based on contact tracing, and nobody was permitted to eat or drink on the plane. But the team was tested at Citi Field anyway after landing on Thursday night, then tested again on Friday, before the league’s formal announcement at noon that the Saturday and Sunday games were off, too.
The Mets and the Yankees are both off on Monday, so they could play a doubleheader then. The teams are also scheduled for a three-game series in the Bronx next weekend, and they have two common off-days in September. The Mets also must make up Thursday’s game with the Marlins Miami is scheduled to visit Citi Field next week for its final games with the Mets this season.
However the schedule plays out, that’s a lot of baseball in a compressed time frame, although the 2020 scheduling wrinkle of seven-inning games in doubleheaders will help. (By the way, let’s hope that innovation stays. A platter of two mini-games in one sitting is an ideal portion for a fan; the action takes on extra urgency, without dragging, and it’s safer for the players, too.)
From a competitive standpoint, sitting out a weekend might help both teams. The Yankees were just swept by the Tampa Bay Rays, with their ever-nimble roster of useful position players and little-known power arms in the bullpen. And while the Yankees are troubled by their annual injury plague, the Rays also have two starters (Charlie Morton and Yonny Chirinos) and a very good reliever (Jose Alvarado) on the injured list.
The Coronavirus Outbreak
Sports and the Virus
Updated Aug. 21, 2020
Here’s what’s happening as the world of sports slowly comes back to life:
- The Western & Southern Open tennis tournament — long held near Cincinnati — has been moved to Queens this year, making for an unusual doubleheader with the United States Open.
- The Mets had two games postponed after a player and a staff member tested positive for coronavirus.
- While live sports are back, spectators are not in most cases. Readers comment on what they were missing as fans in the stands.
The Mets had just won three games from the Marlins, who are slumping but still in second place in the mediocre National League East. The Atlanta Braves are in first, but their rotation is in shambles and their dynamic young stars, second baseman Ozzie Albies and outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr., are out with wrist injuries.
The Mets could use a starter like Zack Wheeler, who fled New York last December for a five-year, $118 million contract with the Phillies. Wheeler has thrived in Philadelphia — he is 3-0 with a 2.81 earned run average — but his new team is squandering its luck as the healthiest roster in the division.
Through Thursday, the Phillies had led by at least two runs in each of their last six losses, undone by a bullpen whose 8.07 earned run average was by far the worst in the majors. The Phillies relievers make the Mets’ bullpen (4.56 E.R.A.) look like the 1990 Nasty Boys, who led the Cincinnati Reds to a title.
The point is that the Mets, who are 12-14, have a chance, even without two players they were counting on — designated hitter Yoenis Cespedes and starter Marcus Stroman — who opted out of the shortened season. Their hitters have the best on-base percentage in the majors, at .356, but they have mostly wasted those opportunities, ranking last in the majors in batting average with runners in scoring position, at .214.
Jacob deGrom has been dazzling as usual, with a 1.93 E.R.A. in five starts, though he has not yet worked past the sixth inning. Seth Lugo is poised for his spot in the patchwork rotation, making Edwin Diaz the closer again. Predictably, Diaz blew a save on Wednesday, but he preserved a victory by striking out the side in the ninth. He has faced 47 batters and struck out 24, and deserves this latest chance to be the lockdown closer of the Mets’ dreams.
In any case, it is comforting to worry about on-field matters after four months without baseball. Local and national television ratings are up across the sport — even with rare late summer competition from the N.B.A. and the N.H.L. — and the Mets are compelling to follow; their broadcast teams are among the best in the game, and the roster is talented and likable.
But now we must wait instead of enjoying a Subway Series weekend. Waiting for good times and hoping for good health — the hallmarks of 2020, inside the game and out.