Major League Baseball has announced a number of schedule changes, hoping to make up the 21 postponements due to COVID-19 concerns over the past two weeks. The St. Louis Cardinals will play three doubleheaders with the NL Central rival Milwaukee Brewers, with a pair of doubleheaders to make up the games lost with Detroit this week.
In the National League East, the Philadelphia Phillies and Miami Marlins will be among the busiest teams in the baseball over the next seven weeks, with the Marlins, the first team hit by a COVID-19 outbreak, to finish the season playing 27 games in 23 days, with no days off and four doubleheaders over a 10 day span. The Phillies will play seven times over a five day stretch, with MLB adding three games to the originally scheduled four game series in Miami from September 10th to the 13th, with a game now added for Monday, September 14th. Doubleheaders will be played at Marlins Park on September 11th and September 13th.
The Cardinals will travel to Miller Park in Milwaukee in mid-September, with a pair of doubleheaders included in the series on September 14th and September 16th. On September 25th, the teams will play a doubleheader at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, with the Brewers serving as the “home team” for the opening game.
St. Louis and Detroit will play doubleheaders on Thursday, August 13th and Thursday, September 10th. The game on August 13th was the original dates for the Cardinals game against the White Sox at the Field of Dreams movie site in Iowa. With that game postponed until 2021, the White Sox will host the Cardinals on Friday, August 14th.
In an effort to ease the high number of games in a short period, MLB has shortened doubleheaders this year to a pair of seven-inning games.
In other scheduling news, Boston’s September 14th game at Miami will be moved to September 15th. To make up games postponed from this past weekend, the Marlins will play the Washington Nationals in doubleheaders on August 22nd, September 18th, and September 20th. The Phillies will play doubleheaders against the Toronto Blue Jays on August 20th and September 18th, and added a doubleheader at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia against the Red Sox for September 8th.
Photo credit – Jeff Roberson / Associated Press / St. Louis, MO