Yankees: Monday’s Game vs Phillies Canceled Following Marlins Coronavirus Outbreak

The Yankees and Phillies will not play on Monday as the coronavirus spreads.

Though it’s only been three games long, this entire Yankees season (and offseason) has felt like waiting out an interminable rain delay.

You don’t know when the game will be bagged, but that tarp’s not going anywhere.

On Monday morning, MLB finally reckoned with the coronavirus outbreak that began with the Miami Marlins this weekend, and acted about 24 hours later than they should have. With an entirely new visiting clubhouse staff supposedly being imported to Citizens Bank Park to help service the Yankees before their two-game set in Philadelphia — where the heavily-infected Marlins just played –the league still decided not to take one more chance, and canceled Yanks-Phils for Monday night.

What this means for beyond Monday is anyone’s guess.

This could easily spiral into a cancellation of the league’s entire slate post-haste, as Rob Manfred and Co. have officially learned that a series of safety protocols can do very little when a virus is running rampant across the country, and the players haven’t been contained, only nudged in the right direction.

The coronavirus wasn’t going anywhere, though we all might have felt differently in May, when MLB’s negotiations for 2020 began in earnest. After all, the rest of the world — even European countries that were ravaged concurrently with New York’s outbreak — was beginning to pull things back together.

The USA’s hubris was just getting started, however, and here we are.

Aroldis Chapman has coronavirus. DJ LeMahieu and Luis Cessa have battled back and rejoined the team. It’s less surprising that a team-wide outbreak happened, and more surprising that it took just about a full month after teams reported to Summer Camp.

It’s going to be nearly impossible to finish this season, let alone the postseason. At the very least, though it came 24 hours after allowing the Marlins to play a game they had no business playing, MLB has made the right decision here.