It took just three games before the 2020 Major League Baseball season appeared to be in jeopardy. An outbreak of COVID-19 with the Miami Marlins forced several games to be rescheduled and has the league adjusting to recover.
As of Wednesday, 18 members of the Miami Marlins have tested positive for the highly-contagious disease. There have been 16 players and two coaches test positive, but the team has not revealed if these players and coaches were experiencing any symptoms.
The trouble started on Saturday when a handful of Marlins players tested positive for COVID-19. Those players were held out of the lineup. By Monday, however, more than a dozen teammates and coaches had tested positive.
Major League Baseball immediately canceled the two games between the Marlins and the Baltimore Orioles on Monday and Tuesday. They have since shut the Marlins down for the remainder of the week.
The two-game series between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees was also scratched as the Phillies hosted the Marlins over the weekend. The league was concerned that the Yankees would be using the same clubhouse that the Marlins used in the first series.
Major League Baseball has been forced to adjust the regular-season schedule with the Marlins shut down throughout the week. Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the rest of the teams would play as scheduled, which remains the case today.
Major League Baseball also announced that the league had produced zero other positive tests since the regular season has started, and they believe that the virus did not spread outside of the Marlins clubhouse.
The league also announced that it’s unlikely that every team would play a full 60 game schedule this season, and they will use win percentage to determine which teams reach the playoffs in 2020. Major League Baseball will also pay players their full prorated salaries for games that were missed due to the outbreak.
ACC Announces 2020 Football Schedule
The Atlantic Coast Conference is planning to have college football this fall, and they released their mostly conference-only schedule on Wednesday. The board of directors agreed to begin the regular season on September 12, and each team in the league will play 11 games.
The league also agreed to include Notre Dame in the conference schedule, even though they are an independent team when it comes to football. Notre Dame saw a number of their regular-season opponents move to conference-only schedules and leave them with several open dates.
ACC was clear that this season can only take place if health officials say that it is okay. Each team will play ten conference games this fall, and each member institution can play one non-conference game of their choosing.
For this season only, the conference is removing the divisions, and they will allow Notre Dame to compete for the chance to play in the conference title game. All of the non-conference games must take place in the home state of the ACC school.
There are two built-in bye weeks as a part of this schedule, which will allow the conference some flexibility. The ACC Championship Game will take place in Charlotte, North Carolina, and two different dates are available as options.
The league sent out the matchups for the upcoming 2020 season, but they have not yet released their full schedule. Clemson and Notre Dame, both title contenders this season, will meet up at some point during the regular season.
The ACC also decided that the other fall sports can begin their seasons on September 10.
