The San Francisco Giants-San Diego Padres game has been postponed because of a player contracting coronavirus for the San Francisco Giants. The player isn’t known at the moment. The teams were slated to play tonight, but minutes away from the first pitch, the umpires came together and canceled the game and the following game tomorrow has been postponed.
Major League Baseball released a statement saying, “Following a positive test for COVID-19 in the San Francisco Giants’ organization, tonight’s and tomorrow’s scheduled games between the Giants and the host San Diego Padres at Petco Park have been postponed out of an abundance of caution and to allow for additional testing and contact tracing to be conducted, Major League Baseball will continue to provide updates as necessary.”
The San Francisco Giants are 23-22, and the San Diego Padres are 29-17. Both teams are trying to move ahead in the National League playoff standings, as the San Diego Padres are 3.5 games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West with 18 games to go left in the regular season. The San Francisco Giants are 9.0 games back, but are currently the 8th seed in the new expanded playoff format, and are battling the Miami Marlins in the standings to gain possession of 7th place.
This San Francisco Giants previously played the Seattle Mariners in a brief two-game series ending Wednesday before heading down the coast to face the San Diego Padres. Coming into tonight’s game, both teams have been on a roll, as the San Francisco Giants have snuck up in the standings, winning seven of their past 10 games, and the Padres won 8 of their last 10. Last night, the two teams played, with San Diego taking the upper hand, winning 6-1.
This is the first Coronavirus case in the NL West, and the second positive coronavirus test in the MLB’s western region, the first coming in the Oakland Athletics organization.
Major League Baseball has had 87 total coronavirus cases so far, and 22 out of 30 MLB clubs have had a positive coronavirus case.