After a reported positive player test on the Reds on Friday, which came after the team played the Pirates on Friday, MLB shut down the entire weekend portion of the series between the Reds and Pirates to allow for additional testing and contact tracing efforts. Good! As we saw with the Marlins and Cardinals, it’s almost impossible to be too aggressive in responding to a positive COVID-19 test.
As fas we’ve heard this weekend, there have not (yet?) been any additional positive tests on the Reds or, for that matter, on the Pirates. But despite that, MLB is planning to take another day, and not schedule Reds/Pirates makeup game(s) for the shared off-day tomorrow. It’s not clear why:
Pirates won't be making up their postponed games against the Reds tomorrow, a mutual off-day. Not sure why at this point, but they do have another trip to Cincinnati scheduled for Sept. 14-16.
They'll get back to action Tuesday night against Cleveland at PNC Park, as scheduled.
— Adam Berry (@adamdberry) August 16, 2020
Shelton, on why they're not playing tomorrow: "Major League Baseball has decided, protocol-wise, that they did not want us to play Monday. What goes into that decision happens a lot higher than me. They just informed us that we're not going to play Monday, and we'll reschedule."
— Adam Berry (@adamdberry) August 16, 2020
Hopefully it’s just an abundance of caution, and not a matter of anything concerning having popped up today (but not yet announced).
Add two games to the Reds’ and Pirates’ schedules now that have to be made up, making it every team’s schedule in the NL Central now impacted in at least some way by a COVID-related shutdown.