First Two Games of Athletics Series in Seattle vs. Mariners Get Postponed
The Oakland Athletics have had their scheduled games Tuesday and Wednesday in Seattle postponed after the team announced Sunday that a member of the organization’s traveling party had tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
The A’s were scheduled for an off-day Monday and remained in Houston, where Sunday’s game had been postponed, overnight Sunday and may stay there again Monday in self-isolation in the team’s hotel.
There is a possibility that the A’s and Mariners will be cleared for a doubleheader on Thursday in Seattle, but that has yet to be determined.
The one postponement in Houston, a postponement Thursday in Arlington, Texas against the Rangers and two postponements against the Mariners suggest that the A’s will have multiple doubleheaders to play in the final four weeks of the season.
The A’s do have off days on Sept. 14, 17 and 21, so those could be used to make up games, but multiple doubleheaders seem inevitable. Already there is a Sept. 12 doubleheader in Oakland to make up for Thursday's game, which was over the A's protesting social injustice.
The Astros are in town Sept. 7-10 and a doubleheader could take place then in the wake of Sunday's postponement, although Sept. 14 may remain a possibility with both teams off and both teams in the State of Texas, the A's due to finish a three-game series against the Rangers in Arlington on Sept. 13.
That may be one reason the A’s traded midmorning Monday with the Rangers for left-handed starter Mike Minor, a 2019 All-Star, to bulk up the Oakland rotation.
Earlier in the day, the A’s got word that the number of positive COVID-19 tests that led to the postponement of Sunday’s series finale was limited to the one.
A tweet from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, later confirmed, was the first with the news that all remaining players, coaches and staff had tested negative for the virus.
The positive result came from tests conducted Friday. The entire traveling party was retested on Sunday after the team learned of the positive test – the retest was on the schedule anyway as the A’s are tested every other day – and after the tests were shipped to the Salt Lake City-area laboratory that does the work, an expedited process got the new back to the A’s and to Major League Baseball in less than 24 hours.
About a dozen big league teams have had COVID-19 positive tests in the five weeks of Major League Baseball’s abbreviated 60-game season. The Cincinnati Reds and the New York Mets have both had positive testing recently, and have gotten through it to continue playing. The A’s hope to follow that model.
The A’s had starting pitcher Jesús Luzardo test positive for COVID-19 at the beginning of the resumption of training the first week of July, but hadn’t had a positive test since until this weekend.
Before that, minor league coach Webster Garrison had contracted the disease shortly after baseball went on hiatus in early March and spent more than a month on a ventilator in a Louisiana hospital before getting to the point where he could come off it. He continues to progress.
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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