MLB - NEWS & NOTES

Sources: Four more Marlins test positive for coronavirus; total at 17

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...re-marlins-test-positive-coronavirus-total-17

 

Stick a fork in the 2020 MLB season. Might just knock out football for the NCAA and NFL unless they get their players in a bubble like the NBA.

 

There’s no clock in their sport, but Major League Baseball has called a timeout on the Miami Marlins.

According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, the Marlins’ season has been suspended after a COVID-19 outbreak that resulted in 15 players testing positive.

While two individual games have been postponed, this makes it likely that baseball’s going to go through a return to play without every team playing the same amount of games.

The team is quarantined after positive tests emerged during last weekend’s series against the Phillies, and they’re not expected to play any of a four-game series against the Orioles and an upcoming three-game series against the Nationals.

The Nationals had previously voted as a team not to travel to Miami (though voting by players is also the faulty method that led the Marlins to play the Phillies after the first four positive tests).

With so many players quarantined for at least two weeks, they’d have to put a largely new team on the field if they did play again soon.

Teams were allowed a pool of 60 eligible players for this season, anticipating positive tests. The 27 players not with the Major League team are working out at a separate site.

 

Might as well play with the scrubs, at least the opponent can keep their players focused

 

MLB Commissioner floats possibility of scrapping season

Baseball has been back for a week. It may not be back for much longer.

According to Jeff Passan of ESPN.com, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark on Friday that baseball could shut down the season, if it doesn’t do a better job of managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Miami Marlins have had a major outbreak, with more than half of the roster testing positive. Other teams have had issues, too, with Friday’s Cardinals-Brewers game postponed due to an undisclosed number of St. Louis players testing positive.

Baseball is using the same model as the NFL; neither league has attempted a full-blown bubble, and given the size of the rosters, an NBA-style model isn’t practical. But baseball’s situation has seemed bizarre to say the least, with for example Marlins players not doctors making decisions about whether to play a game in Philadelphia last Sunday once the outbreak became obvious.

The NFL, in comparison, seems far more buttoned up. However, the NFL will entail games with players in much closer quarters than in baseball. If the MLB shuts down, the NFL may want to consider seriously a bubble approach that would put all members of a given team in a hotel, at least until accurate and reliable point-of-care testing has been developed.

NBC

 

MLB Commissioner decides to keep baseball season going

Rob Manfred’s suggestion that baseball season could be shut down turned out to be as legitimate as a father’s threat to turn this car around right now.

“We are playing,” the MLB Commissioner told Karl Ravech of ESPN.com. “The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable.”

The effort to blame players for the outbreak comes amid indications that the players indeed bear blame, especially on the Marlins. But even if the players do everything they’re supposed to do, it’s impossible to prevent potential outbreaks.

Baseball nevertheless will press on, even if it ultimately means multiple teams playing fewer than 60 games.

“We’ve got to be flexible on that,” Manfred said Saturday, via the Associated Press. “Look, this is one of the reasons that we revisited the issue of the expanded playoffs. If it turns out that some guys play 60, some guys play 58, they have this new thing called winning percentage. We can sort that out.”

Get used to “this new thing called winning percentage.” If each and every NFL team can’t play 16 regular-season games this year due to the pandemic, winning percentage will determine playoff berths and playoff positioning.

NBC

 

As a Red Sox fan, after 10 games of watching this pitching staff, I’m a million percent OK with shutting the season down.

Might’ve made a run at the 03 Tigers (sorry Will) if they’d had to play 162

 

Baseball has decided that the last two teams standing still able to play without coronavirus will play in the World Series

 

There may be actual fans in the stands at baseball games in Cincinnati soon, and not just the cardboard cutout kind.

According to C. Trent Rosecrans of TheAthletic.com, the Reds submitted a plan to the state of Ohio and Major League Baseball to let fans return this season.

The plan has apparently been approved already by the city and county, according to an email to seasonal employees which asked if they planned to return to work this year. That emailed asked for a response from those employees by Wednesday, Aug. 12, but said they could opt out and return next year if they chose.

No time frame for a return has been specified, though a source suggested it would be September at the earliest, if at all.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said last month that he didn’t know if fans would be allowed to attend games in person this season.

“I’m sure that every team in every sport has already looked at their ballpark and figured out what different scenarios would be, how we could put people in here and keep distance,” DeWine said. “One advantage is that it’s outside. One of the things we’ve learned is that outside is safer than inside. It’s safer when people keep a distance, it’s safer when people wear a mask. It’s certainly not inconceivable that you could have some fans for baseball or football. It’s all a question of distance.”

in part from; NBC

 

Padres are all in. Wow

 

Bieber wins MLB pitching Triple Crown
First to lead Majors in wins, ERA and K's since Johan Santana in '06


Bieber captured the 2020 Major League Triple Crown -- a feat that hasn’t been done by any Indians pitcher and hasn’t happened in the big leagues since Johan Santana in 2006. In 1940, Bob Feller won the American League Triple Crown for the Tribe, but he did not lead the Majors in all three categories -- wins, ERA and strikeouts.

Bieber’s eight wins were tied for the most in the Majors with Yu Darvish of the Cubs. Meanwhile, Bieber's 1.63 ERA topped all other pitchers, with Cincinnati's Trevor Bauer finishing second at 1.73. And Bieber's 122 strikeouts won by a landslide, with only Jacob deGrom (104) and Bauer (100) reaching the 100-strikeout mark.

https://www.mlb.com/news/shane-bieber-wins-pitching-triple-crown

 

Too bad he couldn’t keep it going last night.

 

K is for Kershaw: New playoff strikeout king
LA's longtime ace passes Verlander with 207 postseason K's

 

Dodgers win and good thing too because Justin Turner got pulled mid game after a positive COVID result came in and game 7 likely would have needed to be postponed.