TUESDAY, JULY 28 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D3
multiple p ositive tests. The
Atlanta Braves have been
without two catchers who have
symptoms, though no positive
tests. Nationals star Juan Soto is
inactive after a positive test.
Do we need a longer list?
You can’t b e much healthier, as
a group, than a pro baseball
team. You can’t b e much better
protected or tested more often
than an MLB team. The Marlins
are close to the safest possible
case. And now, less than a week
into their season, at l east half of
the team has the coronavirus!
That i s what is meant by
“community spread.” That i s
what is meant by an “outbreak”
in an epidemic. All of us have
worried t hat one or two players
— or people in the MLB
community — would have bad
outcomes f rom the virus if a 60-
game season was played. Time to
blow up that assumption. If half
of the Marlins t eam can test
positive w ithin a few days, then
the scale of danger to health —
the number of people who may
get sick and the severity of the
damage they may suffer,
including prime-of-life pro
athletes — just shot through the
ceiling.
Our assumptions, while well-
intentioned, have been blown to
pieces. And in short order, so will
the season of one, or perhaps
several, of our sports.
The Marlins are just the latest
— but one of the most vivid —
illustrations of what America i s
facing. And how little we are
willing to take seriously the true
measure o f our fearsome enemy.
[email protected]For more by Thomas Boswell, visit
washingtonpost.com/boswell.for it. Turner singled and Adam
Eaton walked against Blue Jays
reliever Ryan Borucki. That
brought the tying run to the plate
with one out, and Toronto Man-
ager Charlie Montoyo turned to
righty Jordan Romano. He got
Starlin Castro to fly out to right
and Kendrick to ground out to
third, and the Nationals never got
another runner past first.“Once the game starts, you get
so involved you kind of forget
about everything,” Martinez said
following the loss. “Then, all of a
sudden, the game’s over and
you’re sitting in your office. A lot
of times, I don’t fall asleep until
two, three in the morning just
wondering what’s going to hap-
pen the next day.”
[email protected]because of my heart condition,
what happens to me if I do get it.
So I’ve got to be extra careful.”
With Martinez shifting around
— from the bench to the top step
and back again — the Blue Jays
jumped on Sánchez. The 36-year-
old had eight strikeouts in five
innings. Four of his pitches,
though, were hit out of the park.
Teoscar Hernández led off the
game by lifting a cutter out to
right. He hit another shot in the
fifth, off another cutter, after
Rowdy Tellez and Danny Jansen
did the same. Sánchez attacked
Tellez with a first-pitch curve that
hung at the designated hitter’s
belt. Jansen hit a well-placed
cutter on the outer half. Sánchez
was otherwise solid, save some
hard contact, but the offense
wasn’t.
“I missed the pitch against
those guys,” Sánchez said after
yielding an odd six hits: four
homers, two doubles and no sin-
gles. “They’re fresh, they’re
young, they’re strong. It’s like a
new baseball era.”
In the second inning, Victor
Robles only singled off the right
field wall because Eric Thames
was a bit too conservative on the
bases. A small rally in the third
faded when Howie Kendrick
bounced into a double play. The
Nationals did score in the fourth,
once Thames wheeled around
from first on a Kurt Suzuki dou-
ble. But Michael A. Taylor lined
into a double play to keep the
damage light. Soon Asdrúbal Ca-
brera did the same to end the
fifth.
The seventh brought a bit of
noise, but still nothing to show“We have to remember that
we’re all human beings and we’re
playing through some tough
times,” Martinez said Monday af-
ternoon when asked why he
seemed emotional, even on the
verge of tears, during a pregame
news conference. “I just want
people to remember that. We
have struggles. These guys have
families. I have a family.
“We think about that stuff. Just
remember that we’re doing the
best we can.”
There was enough to handle on
the first day of the first full week
of the season. Martinez checked
up on left fielder Juan Soto, who
remains sidelined after testing
positive for the coronavirus
Thursday. Soto has received one
lab-confirmed negative test result
from MLB, Martinez confirmed,
and will need a second before he
can return to the field.
To p ad their bench, the Nation-
als officially signed veteran utility
man Josh Harrison to a major
league deal. To make room on
their active roster, they optioned
catcher Raudy Read to their alter-
nate site in Fredericksburg, Va.
Then Martinez had to make a
lineup, then a pitching plan, then
chat with those worried about
recent developments.
That’s managing during a pan-
demic. It’s a constant balancing
act. The 55-year-old Martinez is
known for his positivity. He often
defaults to cliches, saying the
Nationals need to control what
they can control, focus on the task
at hand, go 1-0 today. But that
outlook was shaken by the news
that the Marlins were stuck in
Philadelphia, and the Phillies,
having played the Marlins on
Sunday, were waiting for expedit-
ed test results.
Martinez received a bunch of
text messages. He wondered if
any of his players would opt out
ahead of this Blue Jays matchup,
only the fourth game of a 60 -
game schedule. And while none
did, Martinez remained con-
cerned about them, their wives
and kids, and whether they can
possibly stay safe in this environ-
ment.
It was just last September that
Martinez felt a sharp pain in his
chest, lost feeling in his left arm
and his left thigh and was soon
rushed out of the stadium for a
possible heart attack. He wound
up missing a series in St. Louis
before returning once doctors
had cleared him to fly. He has
been a baseball guy for decades
and would do almost anything to
be by a field. But he also knows a
bit about having health scares in
the dugout.
“You know what? I’m going to
be honest with you. I’m scared. I
really am,” Martinez said Monday.
“So I go from here, home, back
here every day. That’s all I do. I
wash my hands — I went from 47
times a day to probably 99 times a
day. Wear my mask everywhere I
go. There’s that concern.
“Right now, you don’t know,
NATIONALS FROM D1
Sánchez allows four solo shots in loss
KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Nationals starter Aníbal Sánchez allowed four home runs, including one to Toronto’s Danny Jansen.baseball
the NBA and NHL now, and the
NFL and college football by the
end of next month — has been
one naive assumption: If the
virus hit a team, it would infect
one or two players. Maybe three.
But the sense w as things still
would be manageable. You could
still field a team.
When did this become the
highest of all human goals?
The danger and the damage
would not be “too bad.” In t his,
we see Americans’ n ational
tendency toward willful
pandemic ignorance being
played out on a small, crystal-
clear stage so everyone can get
the message.
For months, w e have watched
healthy people, mostly young,
swarm into bars or hit the
beaches with an apparent sense
that community spread was a
fiction or not something that
applied to them. Maybe, the
fantasy went, one person i n the
wrong bar would get the virus.
Now we learn differently. Now
we see the truth.
Over a dozen Marlins and
counting.
The immediate consequences
of the Marlins’ outbreak were the
postponements of their home
opener against t he Baltimore
Orioles and the Philadelphia
Phillies’ home game against the
New York Yankees, who would
have been occupying the
clubhouse those Marlins justthe serious prospect that its 60 -
game season should be canceled.
“Hey, I’m going to be honest
with you: I’m scared. I really a m,”
said Washington Nationals
Manager Dave Martinez, 55, who
has a heart condition.
Why is MLB creating a
situation where Dusty B aker, 71,
the survivor of multiple life-
threatening conditions in the
past 15 years, manages Houston
every day while Texas is a
national coronavirus hot spot?
Martinez added that before
long his team may see more
players “opt out,” as Ryan
Zimmerman and Joe Ross
already have. Once the
defections start, the cascade
won’t s top until the sport must
call a halt.
“Now we REALLY get to see if
MLB is going to put players
health first,” tweeted Los Angeles
Dodgers left-hander David Price,
who passed on $11.8 million by
opting out of this partial season.
“Remember when
[Commissioner Rob] Manfred
said players health was
PARAMOUNT?! Part o f the
reason I’m at h ome right now is
because players health wasn’t
being put first. I can see that
hasn’t c hanged.”
Underneath all the
discussions and elaborate plans
to reopen various sports — MLB,
BOSWELL FROM D1
THOMAS BOSWELL
Every sport has its plan,
but MLB’s already failed
Given what we are seeing with
covid-19 hitting our teams,
maybe we should cancel the
season, the correct response is
“get r id of the word ‘maybe.’ ”
The entire American
experience of this pandemic has
been: Don’t e mbolden the virus
by acknowledging its threat. Try
to outrun it, hide from it, say it’s
not so bad and will go a way.
That j ust breeds a disaster,
and now that disaster has hit
MLB just d ays into its season.
The Cincinnati Reds also haveThis is such a moment — but
perhaps b igger.
Why are we here? The answer
is simple yet inexplicably
unacknowledged in wide swaths
of this country: The pandemic is
not under control until you stop
it, suppress it, dominate it and
crush the curve.
Though many other countries
have done it, America has not
come within a million miles of
that outcome.
As I p ointed out in a column
last week, when a league s ays,showered and dressed in Sunday.
The wider effect: Back to
normal, o r even semi-normal, in
sports was shattered just days
after being reintroduced.
What does this mean?
Some events have ambiguous
consequences. We w on’t k now
their impact for some time. But
in rare cases, one event may have
enormous impact, just as the
positive virus test for the NBA’s
Rudy Gobert in mid-March
resulted in the shutdown of every
major sport within 48 hours.LYNNE SLADKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A woman walks past Marlins Park in Miami on Monday. The Marlins’ home opener was postponed.BY ROMAN STUBBSIn the hours after MLB was
leveled with reports that at least
13 members of the Miami Marlins
had tested positive for the novel
coronavirus, forcing at least two
games to be postponed and cast-
ing doubt on the sport’s plans for
a shortened season, players and
staff from 20 other teams a rrived
at empty stadiums to play games
Monday night.
There was still apparently
baseball to be played, but as some
logged onto their customary pre-
game Zoom calls with reporters,
they expressed fear and uncer-
tainty about continuing their sea-
son in the middle of the pandem-
ic.
“My level of concern went from
about an eight to a 12,” said
Washington Nationals Manager
Dave Martinez, whose team host-
ed the Toronto Blue Jays on Mon-
day night. “I mean, this thing
really hits home now. You see half
a team get infected and go from
one city to another. I got friends
on that Miami team, and it really
stinks.”
There was no indication that
MLB was considering a cancella-
tion of the season after the out-
break struck the Marlins, whose
home opener Monday night
against the Baltimore Orioles was
postponed.
Miami was still in Philadelphia
as of Monday afternoon after
completing a series against the
Phillies on Sunday. Monday’s
game between the Phillies and
New York Yankees was also post-
poned; the Yankees would have
occupied the same visitors’ club-
house Miami had used over the
weekend. The Orioles reportedly
planned to travel home from
Miami on Monday night, mean-
ing that Tuesday’s game against
the Marlins would also be post-
poned.
“When something like that
happens it makes everyone a tick
more nervous than they already
are,” Los Angeles Angels pitching
coach Mickey Callaway told the
Los Angeles Times before Mon-
day’s game against the Oakland
Athletics.
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher
David Price, who announced in
early July that he would be
among more than a dozen players
to sit out the season because of
health concerns, wondered in a
tweet if MLB Commissioner Rob
Manfred would consider shutting
down the sport after the out-
break.
“Now we REALLY get to see if
MLB is going to put players
health first,” Price wrote. “Re-
member when Manfred said play-
ers health was PARAMOUNT?!
Part of the reason I’m at home
right now is because players
health wasn’t b eing put first. I can
see that hasn’t changed.”
Other teams have dealt with
positive cases less than a week
into the season, including in Cin-
cinnati, where Reds infielderMatt Davidson tested positive for
the virus Friday. His teammate
Mike Moustakas was scratched
from the lineup and placed on the
injured list Sunday after falling
sick, although the team has not
confirmed that Moustakas has
tested positive for the coronavi-
rus.
“Baseball aside wanting the
season to continue, but you got to
put that on the back burner right
now and say, all right, how do we
keep everybody safe? And we
know somebody might have to
make a hard decision,” Milwau-
kee Brewers pitcher Josh Lind-
blom told the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel on Monday.
At least one player — Colorado
Rockies pitcher Tim Collins —
reportedly opted out of playing
following the Marlins’ outbreak,
although it was not immediately
clear if the reason was related to
the coronavirus.
Martinez said no other Wash-
ington players would opt out
after Monday’s news; Nationals
first baseman Ryan Zimmerman
and pitcher Joe Ross announced
before the season they would sit
out because of health concerns.
Nationals star outfielder Juan
Soto remains isolated from the
team after testing positive for the
virus last week, although he has
since passed a negative test ad-
ministered by MLB and needs to
pass one more to reach the sport’s
mandate and return to the club.
Washington is planning to
make its first road trip of the
season to Miami for a three-game
series this coming weekend, and
as much as Martinez tried to
focus on the Blue Jays before
Monday night’s game, he was
peppered with more questions
regarding the Marlins. Among
those was his reaction to reports
that Miami coaches and players
had made a decision to play
Sunday’s game against the Phil-
lies despite learning of multiple
players testing positive earlier in
the day.
“One, I hope I never get put in
that position. That right now is
our worst nightmare,” he said.
“Two is there’s a lot of unknowns
about this virus, as we all know.
We’ve got to be really careful
about how this thing spreads and
where teams come from and who
they’ve been in contact with and
really do our due diligence.”
[email protected]Marlins’ outbreak raises
level of fear, uncertainty
ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Commissioner Rob Manfred
was called out by Dodgers left-
hander David Price on Monday.Blue Jays 4, Nationals 1
TORONTO AB RHBI BBSOAVG
Hernandez cf.................. 522202 .294
Biggio 2b........................ 400001 .294
Gurriel Jr. lf.................... 401001 .300
Guerrero Jr. 1b............... 400002 .222
Tellez dh......................... 311110 .100
Drury 3b......................... 400001 .250
Panik ss.......................... 200012 .000
Espinal ss....................... 100000 .000
Jansen c......................... 412100 .364
Fisher rf......................... 301010 .250
Alford rf......................... 000000 .000
TOTALS 34 47439 —
WASHINGTON AB RHBI BBSOAVG
Turner ss........................ 402010 .267
Eaton rf.......................... 401011 .333
Castro 2b........................ 402001 .286
Kendrick 1b.................... 401001 .167
Cabrera 3b...................... 400000 .308
Thames dh..................... 211021 .286
Suzuki c.......................... 402100 .400
Robles cf........................ 402002 .417
Taylor lf.......................... 400001 .091
TOTALS 34 111147 —
TORONTO..................... 100 210 000—4 70
WASHINGTON.............. 000 100 000—1 11 0
LOB: T oronto 6, Washington 10. 2B: G urriel Jr. (1), Su-
zuki (1). 3B: F isher (1). HR: H ernandez 2 (2), off San-
chez; Tellez (1), off Sanchez; Jansen (1), off Sanchez.
RBI: H ernandez 2 (3), Tellez (2), Jansen (2), Suzuki (1).
DP: T oronto 4 (Drury, Biggio, Guerrero Jr.; Drury, Guer-
rero Jr., Drury; Guerrero Jr.; Espinal, Biggio, Guerrero
Jr.).
TORONTO IP HRERBBSONPERA
Thornton......................4 8112374 2.25
Cole..............................1 1000118 0.00
Borucki......................1.1 1001229 0.00
Romano.....................0.2 0000080.00
Dolis.............................1 0001012 3.00
Bass.............................1 1000117 0.00
WASHINGTON IP HRERBBSONPERA
Sanchez.......................5 6441788 7.20
Freeman.......................2 0001115 0.00
Guerra.......................2.1 0000020 0.00
Harper..........................1 1001114 0.00
WP: Borucki (1-0); LP: Sanchez (0-1); S: Bass (1).
Inherited runners-scored: Romano 2-0, Guerra 1-0. IBB:
off Sanchez (Tellez).NATIONALS ON DECKvs. Toronto Blue JaysToday6:05 MASNat Toronto Blue Jays*Tomorrow 6:05 MASN2Thursday4:05 MASNat Miami MarlinsFriday7:10 MASNSaturday6:10 MASN
Sunday1:10 MASNRadio: WJFK (106.7 FM)
* Games will be played at Nationals
Park.HOW THEY SCORED
BLUE JAYS FIRST
Hernández homers to center field. B iggio flies out. Gur-
riel Jr. doubles. Guerrero Jr. strikes out swinging.
Tellez is intentionally walked. D rury reaches on a field-
er’s choice to third base. Tellez out at second.
Blue Jays 1, Nationals 0
BLUE JAYS FOURTH
Tellez homers to right field. Drury flies out. Panik
strikes out swinging. Jansen homers. F isher flies out.
Blue Jays 3, Nationals 0
NATIONALS FOURTH
Thames singles. S uzuki doubles. Thames scores. Robles
singles. Suzuki to third. Taylor lines out. Robles dou-
bled off first. Turner walks. Adam Eaton pops out.
Blue Jays 3, Nationals 1
BLUE JAYS FIFTH
Hernández homers to right field. Biggio called out on
strikes. Gurriel Jr. lines out. Guerrero Jr. pops out.
Blue Jays 4, Nationals 1