Cubs' ‘super Frightening' Close Call in St. Louis Shows How Fragile Season Is

All the Cubs wanted before leaving for the ballpark in St. Louis on Friday was "just reassurance" before playing one of the two teams in the majors that had endured a major COVID-19 outbreak.

"And they assured us they were going to communicate every detail of why we should be on the field," Cubs manager David Ross said.

Ross spoke Saturday morning via Zoom from Chicago - that fact itself a reminder of the details that started pin-balling from all the wrong directions Friday morning.

"It's just another one of those reminders of how quick things can get out of control right now in this environment," said Ross, whose team learned early enough to avoid even showing up at Busch Stadium and to reschedule its charter to land at O'Hare before 8 p.m. Friday.

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Ross called the communication from Major League Baseball and the Cardinals "outstanding."

But he paused when asked about just how close their near-miss with the coronavirus was this weekend.

As in: What if the three Cardinals who tested positive Friday (after reportedly being exposed Wednesday) hadn't gotten their positive results until Saturday instead - after spending Friday night in the same building and on the field with the Cubs?

"I hadn't looked at it like that," Ross said. "It shows how fast it can get out of control. That part of the virus is super frightening."

At least two of the 16 Cardinals players and staff known to have tested positive in the last 10 days are said to have symptoms, the severity of which are unclear.

But even beyond that reminder of the health-risk roll of the dice for each individual (and his family), Friday's close call for the Cubs underscores just how fragile baseball's attempt at a two-month season is.

"We send our best to the Cardinals and those players. It's a scary time," Ross said, "and we all want baseball to move forward and guys to be healthy."

The Cubs are the only team in the league, through at least Friday, who have not had a player test positive.

Two teams, including the Marlins, already have had major outbreaks, with the Cardinals into their second week of postponed series and sleepless nights for their president of baseball operations.

"I don't know what really our future looks like at this point," Cards president John Mozeliak said, according to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Experts who we consulted with gave us advice that we could take that next step forward. 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. We're just caught in the middle of it."

Along with everybody else in baseball.

The Cardinals have played only five games, and their next series, against Pittsburgh, reportedly is on the verge of being postponed as well.

The Cubs' next opponent, Cleveland, has 16 games in the books with Saturday's game against the White Sox.

Fifty days remain in the scheduled 60-game season after Saturday.

The 10-3 Cubs have it better than most, even with the lost series against the Cardinals - a postponement that for now looks more like a cause to celebrate than for disappointment.

But what does the league do if the virus doesn't allow the Cardinals to play by the end of the week? And what if a third team - or a fourth - experiences an outbreak.

And just how close did the Cubs come to becoming that third team if they had played a game or two of that series with asymptomatic, infected Cardinals unwittingly on the same field.

When the Cardinals' outbreak initially unfolded while the team was in Milwaukee last weekend, one result was Brewers star center fielder becoming one of four players in a two-day span to opt out of playing the rest of the season.

"It's 2020, where we know we've got to take it one day at a time," Ross said. "We've talked about that from the start."

The Cubs and almost everybody in the league - including Mozeliak's Cardinals - seem to have taken the health risk and hyper-contagious nature of COVID-19 seriously enough for most of the schedule to be played so far.

The Cardinals, in fact, invested in equipment years ago they have used since to sanitize visiting clubhouses on the road ahead of players occupying them.

The Cubs have exceeded MLB standard safety protocols with impressive enough results that other teams have reached out to discuss their methods.

And yet the Cardinals' season hangs by a thread. And the Cubs, for all their precautions, might have sidestepped direct exposure by a matter of a few hours, a few reliable tests, and luck.

By extension, if not by definition, the league's season also hangs by a thread.

"I think we all know that this season is just really a year of who can adjust to a little bit of adversity and some change," Ross said. "And that's going to be throughout the season. We know that. And we'll continue to push forward."

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Cubs' 'super frightening' close call in St. Louis shows how fragile season is originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

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