Friday’s Cardinals-Brewers game postponed after two Cardinals test positive for COVID-19

Friday’s scheduled game between the Cardinals and Brewers has been postponed after two members of the Cardinals’ traveling party tested positive for COVID-19. MLB announced the decision on Friday morning, saying that the game will be made up Sunday as part of a doubleheader. It’ll presumably be one of the first of the seven-inning variety, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan has reported that the league will announce an in-season rule change on Friday.

Obviously, as we’ve seen with this week’s events involving the Marlins and Phillies, this situation has the potential to drag out beyond Friday, and it could end up affecting non-Cardinals teams. The Cardinals last played on Target Field on Wednesday, and the Indians played there Thursday night against the Twins and likely used the same visiting clubhouse. Depending on the results of contact tracing, this news could shut down the Indians and Twins indefinitely and eventually wipe out Saturday and Sunday’s Cards-Brewers games.

The more teams have games wiped out due to COVID exposure, the more MLB will struggle to maintain a standings system that can fairly decide which teams advance to the playoffs. This year’s expanded playoffs obviously help with that issue, but if whole series across the sport start getting shut down, things are going to get really tough.