#Rob Manfred under scrutiny with MLB in coronavirus trouble

PHILADELPHIA — Major League Baseball’s era of good feelings about playing through the coronavirus lasted about as long as a pitcher’s rest between starts.

On just the fifth day of its regular season, MLB postponed a pair of contests scheduled for Monday night — Yankees-Phillies at Citizens Bank Park and Orioles-Marlins at Marlins Park in Miami — as a result of a COVID-19 outbreak that impacted 11 Marlins players and two coaches, calling into question the league’s ability to navigate a 60-game regular season and the subsequent postseason. Tuesday’s Orioles-Marlins game also was postponed, commissioner Rob Manfred said in an interview with the MLB Network.

The Marlins, who remained at their hotel here after playing the Phillies over the weekend (hence the Yankees-Phillies series getting impacted), were “doing some additional testing,” Manfred said. “Acceptable” results, the commissioner added, would lead to the Marlins resuming their season Wednesday night against the Orioles in Baltimore.

On their weekly conference call with Manfred, the team owners didn’t discuss a cancellation of the season, and the commissioner expressed bullishness on the sport’s short-term future.

“We expected we were going to have positives at some point in time,” Manfred said. “I remain optimistic that the protocols are strong enough, that it will allow us to continue to play even through an outbreak like this and complete our season.”

Manfred’s optimism proved considerably less infectious than the coronavirus. Nationals manager Dave Martinez, whose team is scheduled to visit the Marlins this weekend, described himself as “scared” to reporters on Monday and added his wish that MLB “does the right thing” and doesn’t compel his club to travel to the COVID-19 hot spot that is Miami.

Added Martinez: “My level of concern went from an eight to a 12.”

Dodgers left-hander and former Cy Young Award winner David Price, who opted out of this season, tweeted, “Now we REALLY get to see if MLB is going to put players’ health first. Remember when Manfred said players health was PARAMOUNT?! Part of the reason I’m at home right now is because players health wasn’t being put first. I can see that hasn’t changed.”

Responded Manfred: “I disagree with David’s comments. I think both for the MLBPA and for us, the health issue was the one that had to be resolved. It was the most important one to all of us. In terms of the activities that have happened in the last few days … we followed the protocols to a T. We went beyond those protocols in the sense that we canceled games, two for the Marlins so far. We’re open to having to cancel additional games if we feel it’s necessary to keep our players safe.”

The Phillies, having been exposed to the Marlins, endured another round of tests on Monday, with results expected late Monday night. The Yankees stayed in town as the Phillies hoped to hold a doubleheader, as long as they received the requisite medical clearance, Tuesday at their ballpark; the two clubs are then scheduled to play each other Wednesday and Thursday at Yankee Stadium, creating more opportunities for makeups should Plan A not come together as desired.

Manfred possesses broad powers with vague parameters when it comes to the nuclear option of canceling the season; we now know that a severe hit to one of the league’s lowest-profile teams won’t get it done. The Marlins simply must dip into their 60-man reserve and march forward.

Asked whether there would be a point of critical mass that would cause the league to halt, Manfred said, “I think that a team losing a number of players that rendered it completely noncompetitive would be an issue that we would have to address and have to think about making a change, whether that was shutting down a part of the season, the whole season — that depends on the circumstances. Same thing with respect to league-wide. You get to a certain point league-wide where it does become a health threat and we certainly would shut down at that point.”

Manfred, who took a beating during the league’s financial negotiations with the players to restart the sport, found himself receiving a new batch of scrutiny as a result of the decision by the Marlins and Phillies to play Sunday afternoon at CBP despite the knowledge that four Marlins players already had tested positive.

“I think really what happened was there was testing on Friday, one positive on Saturday, testing again on Saturday and the three additional positives on Sunday,” Manfred said. “What then happened under the protocols was, we did contact tracing on all four positives. There was I think a small number of players who met the CDC guidelines [for close contact]. They were quarantined. We ordered additional testing. We did symptom checks. We did temperature checks. And decided to proceed with the game on Sunday.”

With the Phillies’ visiting clubhouse employees quarantined as a result of the Marlins’ outbreak, the Yankees imported their own clubhouse attendants from New York in case they do play the Phillies here.

The reverberations from this episode — “I don’t put this in the nightmare category,” Manfred said — should reveal themselves sooner than later. Will more players opt out? Will more games get postponed? Will Manfred face more questions about MLB’s priorities? How many more outbreaks will occur, and which one would be the game’s breaking point? As a cherry on top of this sundae of MLB misery Monday, White Sox manager Rick Renteria was not going to manage the team’s game against the Indians in Cleveland, undergoing testing after reporting “a slight cough and nasal congestion,” as per the team. The game was rained out.

With so many doubts emerging after only five days, here in 2020, MLB already stands behind in the count.

— with Joel Sherman and George A. King III