While the Cardinals wait and test and test and test again, Major League Baseball has mapped a route back to the field for the team and started rearranging games so that even if they don't play a complete season, they can play what commissioner Rob Manfred called a "credible" one.
"I absolutely see a path back for the Cardinals," Manfred said in a phone interview with the Post-Dispatch on Monday afternoon. "That is dependent on getting enough days with no positives that we're comfortable that we don't have any contagion risk. But 100% I see a path back."
The Cardinals' on Monday received the results from their Sunday tests and did not have any new positives for COVID-19, two sources confirmed. The Cardinals continued their daily testing Monday, and Manfred outlined how the team must have "multiple days of clean tests" before baseball will clear the club to regather after a second quarantine in 12 days.
A week ago, Major League Baseball required two consecutive days without a new positive before the Cardinals could leave their hotel in Milwaukee. Manfred suggested the team would need that many "collections where we're clean."
His office then bought time for the Cardinals to do that.
The Cardinals' visit to Detroit, to play a doubleheader on Thursday, was postponed. The Chicago White Sox moved Saturday's start time back from an afternoon game to 6:10 p.m. (St. Louis time). If Friday's scheduled game vs. the White Sox is postponed, that later start would buy time for the Cardinals to get results from Friday's tests and play Saturday's game a full week removed from the most recent new positive result.
