"More Than Five" Additional Cardinals Test Positive (Did Players Go To A Casino?)

Updated: Manfred's latest reaction (in Ravech/Calcaterra tweet).

"More than five" additional Cardinals have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and today's Cardinals-Brewers has been postponed. That makes at least eight positives on the Cardinals. More test results are expected later today.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets that MLB has told its national TV partners they should have alternate programming ready in case games are postponed are next week.

The national TV partners of #MLB have indeed been told to have alternate programming ready next week in case games are postponed, as @KeithOlbermann reported.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 1, 2020

So, Rob, are we in a "nightmare" situation yet?

Couching this in terms of being a "quitter" -- given the connotations and character judgments that entails in a sports context -- is predictably poor form from Manfred, especially on a day a major star opt-ed out. https://t.co/u4ei8rgAPg

— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) August 1, 2020

Either way, it makes me less confident that Major League Baseball is going to make reasoned decisions based on the facts on the ground as opposed to doing everything it can, reasonable or not, in order to try to get the season in and then cast blame if they can't.

— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) August 1, 2020

(Yep. Baseball is fucked.)

After the first two positive cases on Thursday night, all Cardinals players and staff were told to self-isolate in their hotel rooms. But there are reports this morning that at least six members of the organization, including pitcher Carlos Martinez, broke the league's rules and went to a casino, albeit before the team's outbreak. The report comes from former player Jerry Hairston Jr.

A few Marlins go to a club & now hearin a few Cardinals went to a Casino? That’s not following protocols. #MLB Players are furious cause 28 other teams have worked hard to follow guidelines. #smh.

— Jerry Hairston, Jr. (@TheRealJHair) August 1, 2020

And now there's a rumor that St. Louis Cardinals went to a casino?

I know decisionmaking is frequently short-sighted for dudes in their 20s/30s (certainly I was included), but one would think the financial incentives were enough to just be willing to have a boring couple months.

— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) August 1, 2020

The Marlins have been criticized for going to a strip club and the hotel bar in Atlanta two days before the season began. They have a total of 20 positive cases.

The Phillies had no new positive test results on Friday and have reopened its park to players for staggered workouts.

There have been a total of 128 positive tests, 104 players and 24 staff members.

Despite having health and safety protocols in place before the season began, MLB is making things up as it goes along, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

League officials say the system is improving, according to Rosenthal, but others in the game say it feels inconsistent and puzzling. MLB's responses have been inconsistent and contradictory. The Marlins and Phillies were allowed to play last weekend despite four positive cases (and the strong possibility that more existsed), but MLB cancelled other games last week despite no positives, saying it was exercising "an abundance of caution", despite throwing caution to the wind in a much more serious instance.

Rosenthal:

The original plan was to keep plowing forward, to absorb positive tests, plug in new players and accept any consequences, all to prevent the league from collapsing like a house of cards. Well, the house-of-cards analogy still applies, only now it feels to many in the game as though the league is playing with a different deck. MLB believes its adjustments are all in the name of safety, the objective that matters most. But as the sport evolves to this new plan, it's fair for people around the game to ask: Why wasn't it in place from the start?