Elephant Rumblings: Cardinals coronavirus outbreak worsens, but Phillies return to action

Good morning, Athletics Nation!

Monday brought good news and bad news in terms of the coronavirus pandemic in MLB. The St. Louis Cardinals, the latest team to get hit with an outbreak of positive cases, saw the severity of their situation worsen — at the time of yesterday’s Rumblings post they had six cases, and now it’s up to 13, including seven players. And whereas they were going to resume play on Tuesday in Detroit, that whole series against the Tigers is now postponed, putting them a full week behind schedule.

On the bright side, the Phillies are cleared and good to go, returning to action Monday in a 6-3 loss to the Yankees. The Phillies went on hiatus after playing the Marlins two weekends ago, right before the Miami club had their own outbreak that led to 18 cases among players, and it caused the postponement of seven of Philadelphia’s first 10 games for the season. Fortunately, during their week of precautionary quarantine, no Phils players tested positive.

So, things got worse for one team, but didn’t get worse for another, meaning there are now only two clubs currently sitting out on pause instead of three. More importantly, the Phillies example is encouraging because it shows that two teams can play each other while one is unknowingly infected, without spreading the active outbreak to their opponent — an essential possibility if there’s to be any chance of avoiding a growing problem around the league.

As for the Marlins, team CEO Derek Jeter defended the players amid reports about their behavior leading up to the club’s outbreak. Jeter reports that while some of the Marlins weren’t obeying the guidelines perfectly, they also weren’t out being reckless at bars or clubs or anything.

Overall Monday was better than worse in regard to the pandemic’s effect on the sport, though one more player still opted out — Brewers pitcher Shelby Miller. The veteran was in Milwaukee’s player pool, but didn’t make their Opening Day 30-man roster and hasn’t appeared in the bigs yet this year. He’s the 21st player to opt out and stay out.

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Looking beyond the virus, Monday brought another piece of news relevant to the A’s. The division rival Angels are set to call up outfielder Jo Adell, a consensus Top 10 national prospect who ranks slightly higher than Jesus Luzardo on every major list. On the downside, the Halos also officially lost a star, as they’ll be without the pitching services of Shohei Ohtani for possibly the rest of the regular season — though he may still be able to DH (see Twitter section below for details).

A’s Coverage

• Game #10: A’s lineup breaks out in 11-1 rout of Mariners
• Hickey: Davis Breaks Out with Single and Homer; the Next Move is Melvin’s
• Hickey: Athletics’ Kemp Keeping the Joy in Playing Baseball
• Hickey: Dog Day Afternoons for Athletics’ Hendriks, Laureano
• Slusser: A’s closer Liam Hendriks reveals he’s considered at-risk with liver condition ($)
• Kawahara: A’s Bob Melvin, Liam Hendriks adapt to MLB extra-innings rule ($)
• Hall: A’s lineup awakens with 8-run inning against Seattle Mariners
• Hall: Robbie Grossman is hitting the ball harder in 2020 so far
• Hall: A’s hot hands are in the outfield to begin 2020 season

Bay Area sports

• Schulman: Ralph Barbieri, KNBR’s ‘Razor,’ dies at 74 after battle with Parkinson’s

MLB News, & Interest

• Rogers: Cards report 7 players, 6 staffers with COVID
• Rosenthal: Manfred and MLB need to focus on cooperation with players, not blame
• Starkville podcast: Guest is Andrew McCutchen, talking Marlins outbreak
• Frisaro: Jeter discusses Marlins’ COVID-19 outbreak
• Todd: Shelby Miller Opts Out Of 2020 Season
• Bollinger: Angels to call up top prospect Adell (source)
• Bowman: Soroka tears right Achilles, out for season
• Bastian: Báez makes jaw-dropping tag: ‘I practice this’
• Today in Baseball History

Yesterday’s Game Highlights

Monday: Win! And by double-digits! Once again, Ramon Laureano led the charge.

First dinger of the year for Khris!

Best of Twitter

The best part of an 11-1 win might have been a player who wasn’t even in the game

What a trash trade by Houston

And speaking of Astros trades, they’re still trying to keep up with the sudden rush of injuries to their pitching staff

As if Luzardo needed to get even better

Well that doesn’t sound good

The other side of the story in Miami

Not baseball-related but still sports, and I live in Walnut Creek, so LOL wut