#Mets have no time for excuses amid daunting stretch

After four straight days of postponements due to a pair of coronavirus cases, the Mets now face a different hurdle: starting Tuesday, they’ll play nine games in six days — including three doubleheaders.

“It’s a challenge, but this is a year that can’t be about excuses,’’ general manager Brodie Van Wagenen said Monday in a Zoom call. “We are not the only team that has faced adversity with scheduling. We’re not the only team that’s faced adversity with losing players or coaches for a period of time. Everyone’s been faced with their own injury challenges. We can’t be looking at what we don’t have or what our challenges may be going forward. We’ve got to think about what we do have and find ways to be competitive with the schedule we’re faced with.”

That schedule begins with Tuesday’s twin bill against the Marlins at Citi Field. The Mets held a staggered workout at Citi Field on Monday, their first action since their game in Miami was postponed Thursday afternoon following the positive tests.

The Mets will then play single games against the Marlins on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by a doubleheader against the Yankees on Friday in The Bronx. The Yankees and Mets will play a single game Saturday at Yankee Stadium, followed by another doubleheader at the Stadium on Sunday. The other postponed Subway Series game is slated to be made up Sept. 3 at Citi Field, meaning five of the six matchups will take place in The Bronx — although the Mets will serve as the home team in two of those games.

“We’d always like to play every game at home, whether it’s this series or any other,’’ said Van Wagenen, who added the Mets worked with MLB on the schedule. “We’ve got to be prepared to play everywhere. That’s got to be our focus and not worry about whether it’s at Citi Field or Yankee Stadium or any of our other road games.”

Their other focus remains on staying healthy. The Mets did not disclose the position player or coach who tested positive for COVID.

Van Wagenen said the two did display symptoms, but those have mostly dissipated. There is no timetable for when they might leave Miami. The GM said through contact tracing, four other members of the organization were found to have been in close contact, but all four continued to test negative and are on their way back to New York.

As of Monday, the team still hadn’t determined how the positive results came about.

“I think what we’re all learning is this virus continues to have a lot more questions for us than answers,’’ Van Wagenen said. “We do feel comfortable that the spread has not come from player-to-player or coach-to-coach. At this point, our best guess is it came from some outside spot. But that is simply that: It’s a guess. We don’t know and we may never know.”

Van Wagenen added he was confident the cases did not come because of “misbehaving.”

“We feel good about what we’re doing and I know our players take it seriously,’’ Van Wagenen said. “And we have a high degree of confidence that this exposure we received is not as a result of anyone misbehaving or failing to be responsible with their own safety.”

That begs the question of what the Mets might be able to do, if anything, to tighten protocols, since they got the positive cases.

“I think it reminds us we’re not immune to exposure and reminds us the protocols Major League Baseball put in place and the efforts we’ve taken as an organization are smart and the right ones,’’ the GM said. “When we started back up, I think there was an assumption and expectation that baseball was gonna have positive cases and I think it’s a tribute to what has been done that there’s been so few cases.”