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We have had Marlins, Phillies, and now Cardinals test positive. We have had replacement games with the poor Yankees having to play the highly rated Orioles. Monday the Postponed games were - Yankees at Phillies; Orioles at Marlins. Tuesday - Postponed games: Yankees at Phillies; Orioles at Marlins. Wednesday - Postponed games: Phillies at Yankees; Orioles at Marlins. Replacement game: Yankees at Orioles. Thursday - Postponed games: Phillies at Yankees; Orioles at Marlins. Replacement game: Yankees at Orioles. Today - Postponed games: Cardinals at Brewers; Phillies at Blue Jays; Nationals at Marlins. Weekend games already postponed (both Saturday and Sunday): Phillies at Blue Jays; Nationals at Marlins. And the Cardinals just left Minnesota. The Blue Jays are postponed and do not even have a home to go to. If MN is postponed will it be during the Cleveland Series and the Pirates. The first set is fine, but lets not lose out on Pittsburgh. In a 60 game season that is 12 postponed games. The end of September the playoffs are scheduled to follow the jampacked season. So we will have teams at this stage who have played 50 - 60 games. No guarantees. Fair? They are ready for double headers now with 7 inning games - how about triple headers with 5 innings each? Four game sets at three innings each? Or we just roll dice and pretend it is an APBA season. Oh yes, the question (s) - if this blows up in the next week or two - do the stats still count or will Bieber and others be short changed. I mean the games are regular season like the counting stats for Upton's 300th HR, does Kelly's suspension go away, Does Cabrera lose his three HRs as he goes for 500 or the hits as he looks for 3000?

This weekend was an absolute blast. The Minnesota Twins took the field and despite a hiccup on Saturday, looked the part of a superior team ready to assert themselves. On their off-day Monday, Major League Baseball did its best to go up in flames. I expected a rollercoaster this season, but I’m not sure this was how I envisioned it. Max Kepler started the season with a dinger, and then he went ahead and did it again. Nelson Cruz blasted his way into the record books with a seven-RBI performance on Sunday, and Rocco Baldelli’s club looked like a clear favorite in the AL Central. This week is highlighted by tough matchups with the St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Indians, a good measuring stick pair of matchups. As I eagerly anticipated the return of Twins baseball at Target Field today, even without fans, I couldn’t help but feel an immense level of uncertainty. The Miami Marlins now have zero idea how they’ll field a team, and the Washington Nationals want no part of player such an infected organization. Rob Manfred has said it’s not a death blow to the league, but he also hasn’t stepped up with any real plan forward. I guess all of that leaves us in this weird limbo that 2020 continues to serve up. The three days tweeting real, live, Twins action over the weekend were some of the most fun I’ve had in all the years spent doing this. It was a reprieve from the world around us, and while not sticking my head in the sand, it was a necessary getaway. The unfortunate flip side is whether or not it will all be taken away, and a matter of how abruptly. I’m not going to pretend I have any clue how to navigate these waters, or that playing baseball through a global pandemic is even an entirely possible endeavor. What I do know though, is that this Twins team has already flashed reason to believe they’ll be among the best in franchise history, and I’d hate to see that go wasted. My hope is that there’s a way forward and that some ugly situations early present an opportunity for discussion, planning, and growth. Maybe we’ll look back at this first week much like we can hope to in regards to 2020 as a whole, and just shake our heads at the absurdity we experienced. I’m not sure what lies ahead, but you best believe it will be better if Twins baseball remains a part of it. For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

Here are a couple quotes from ESPN - "The Minnesota Vikings announced Monday that head trainer Eric Sugarman and members of his family have tested positive for the coronavirus. "Sugarman also is the Vikings' infection control officer. He said in a statement that he and his family immediately quarantined and "are all doing fine and experiencing only mild symptoms." "The Vikings said they are sanitizing their facility and contacted anyone who was in close contact with Sugarman. The team said those team personnel have been tested "and are returning under the established guidelines." Yes, the infection control officer! "Two Monday night MLB games were postponed because of an outbreak of the coronavirus among the Miami Marlins. "The Marlins' home opener against the Baltimore Orioles is off, as well as the Philadelphia Phillies' home game against the New York Yankees. "Miami just completed a series in Philadelphia, and seven more players and two coaches with the Marlins tested positive for the coronavirus. An outbreak has spread throughout their clubhouse and brought the total cases in recent days to at least 13, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN's Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers." Half the team! CNN reports: "Eleven Marlins players and two coaches tested positive for the virus, ESPN reports. Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said the team is staying in Philadelphia, where it just played a three-game series, pending the results of a new round of testing. "Postponing tonight's home opener was the correct decision to ensure we take a collective pause and try to properly grasp the totality of this situation," Jeter said in a statement. "The positive tests come just days after MLB began its abbreviated 60-game season -- which had been delayed from its usual April opening because of the pandemic -- and already threaten to upend the young season." "In recent weeks, Miami has been one of the epicenters of the coronavirus, pushing hospitals to capacity. Miami-Dade County recently surpassed 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases." Florida has over 424,000 cases. So now what? What if the Phillies test positive? What if the umps test positive? What about the teams that they had contact with before this series? They played the Braves in an Exhibition. Think about what would happen if this was the week before the newly minted 60 day World Series. This is the Marlins so their 30 man taxi squad might be as good as the MLB roster. But are they on the 40 man? Do they bump players from the current 40 man? What about teams that didn't take the extra 30 man seriously? If I was a GM I would be reexamining the players I have on that team. For a contending team to lose 10 players for two weeks would be devastating. And what if the Marlins find that they have even more infected on their taxi and extra squad? Can they cancel the season for one team? I would. And if the Marlins infected the stars in Philadelphia, do the Phillies have any recourse? USA TODAY SAID "In hindsight, MLB never should have permitted the Marlins to take the field Sunday against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park after three players tested positive for COVID-19, just two days after another player tested positive. Marlins manager Don Mattingly said the team never considered not playing, but it is now clear that was a mistake and has put the entire season in jeopardy." CBS Sports had these quotes from Manfred "Manfred, who indicated that the Marlins could return to the field as early as Wednesday -- as a home team in Baltimore -- with "acceptable" testing results, responded that "[a] team losing a number of players that rendered it completely non-competitive" would be standard for considering a pause at the team level. That would of course require subjective judgment to determine whether a team had been reduced to "non-competitive" status, but it's at least a standard of some kind. "He was asked a similar question earlier this month as part of an appearance on Dan Patrick's radio show. Here's what Manfred said: "I don't have a firm number of days in mind (to pause the season). I think the way that I think about it, Dan, is in the vein of competitive integrity, in a 60-game season," Manfred said. "If we have a team or two that's really decimated with a number of people who had the virus and can't play for any significant period of time, it could have a real impact on the competition and we'd have to think very, very hard about what we're doing." "Despite having a call with the 30 team owners at 12:30 p.m. ET, the word is that MLB has no plans to cancel or pause the season at the present moment." https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/heres-what-rob-manfred-said-it-would-take-to-pause-2020-mlb-season-over-covid-19-concerns/ Chicago Tribune added this frightening note - "The news got worse for the White Sox hours later when it was revealed manager Rick Renteria awoke with coronavirus symptoms and was taken to a Cleveland hospital to get tested. The Sox announced Renteria would not manage Monday’s game, which was later postponed. The Sox had two players test positive before camp, including third baseman Yoan Moncada, and right fielder Nomar Mazara was placed on the injured list with no designated injury." https://twitter.com/MLBNetwork/status/1287893850833457152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1287893850833457152%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlb.com%2F