MLB rumors: Marlins chose to play Phillies on Sunday despite knowing about coronavirus outbreak

This is downright scary.

According to multiple reports, the Miami Marlins voted to play Sunday against the Philadelphia Phillies despite knowing the club was in the early stages of a coronavirus outbreak.

Per USA Today:

It was revealed that Sunday morning a group text by the team – not Major League Baseball – was the deciding factor in playing the team’s game vs. the Philadelphia Phillies as a COVID-19 outbreak was on the horizon.  After learning Sunday morning that their starting pitcher and two other players tested positive for the virus, with an outbreak looming, Marlins players turned to their starting shortstop, Miguel Rojas, to determine if they’d play on Sunday. “We made the decision that we’re going to continue to do this and we’re going to continue to be responsible and just play the game as hard as we can,” Rojas said, per The Philadelphia Inquirer. “(Not playing) was never the mentality. We knew that this would happen at some point. We came to the ballpark and we were ready to play. That was never our thought that we weren’t going to play.”

At least 13 members of the Marlins tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, the Marlins’ home opener Monday against the Baltimore Orioles was postponed. MLB also postponed Monday’s game between the Phillies and Yankees, since New York was set to use the same visitors clubhouse previously occupied by the Marlins.

There’s no word on the status of Tuesday’s Yankees-Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park, with Philadelphia players awaiting results of coronavirus tests. The clubs also are scheduled to play a pair of games this week at Yankee Stadium.

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The New York Post’s George King reports the Yankees have made several attempts to clear the way for New York and Philadelphia to honor the MLB schedule.

With Phillies staffers who work in the visiting clubhouse sent to quarantine and unable to unpack the Yankees’ equipment truck Sunday night, the Yankees sent several clubhouse employees from Yankee Stadium to Philly on Monday. However, due to an ultra-cleaning process the equipment wasn’t inside the clubhouse as of late Monday afternoon. According to NBC Sports Philadelphia, the Yankees called the Phillies on Sunday looking to shift Monday’s game to Yankee Stadium but the discussion didn’t result in a move.

That left the Yankees playing the waiting game Monday in Philadelphia.

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