Cardinals Reportedly Won't Assemble as Team for 3-5 Days Amid COVID-19 Outbreak

The St. Louis Cardinals reportedly won't be gathering as a team for three to five days in an effort to combat the COVID-19 outbreak within the team. 

Mark Saxon of The Athletic reported that the team's upcoming series with the Pittsburgh Pirates, scheduled to start Monday, will likely be canceled. 

The Cardinals have already had 12 games postponed, with 16 members of the organization (nine players) testing positive for the coronavirus. They're the second MLB team to face a major outbreak of the coronavirus; the Miami Marlins returned to play Tuesday after having six games postponed. 

For the Cardinals, the question is when it will be safe to resume their season. 

"I don't know what the right answer is. Is it two days, is it five days, is it 10 days or is it two weeks? The whole country, the whole world, is facing these same questions," Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told Saxon. "We're just caught in the middle of it. That's why it's a pandemic."

The other question is whether the Cardinals took the proper precautions once positive cases started being recorded. The team began isolating on July 31 after the first positive tests, per Saxon, but reconvened to travel on Wednesday. 

Whenever they return, they'll be facing a whirlwind schedule, with 55 games and just 49 days remaining in the MLB regular season (and that's if the series against the Pirates isn't canceled). Given the already strange  nature of the 60-game shortened season, the Cardinals are facing a unique and potentially grueling gauntlet of games when—or if—they return to play.