The Phillies might not have escaped the Marlins’ COVID-19 web after all.
A Phillies coach and a member of their home clubhouse staff have both tested positive for the virus, the club announced Thursday. No players were found to be positive in Wednesday’s latest round of testing, but the two cases forced the team to cancel all activity at Citizens Bank Park “until further notice.”
The Phillies were not going to play until Saturday at the earliest as they awaited test results. Now, their series against the Blue Jays has been postponed, according to Toronto manager Charlie Montoyo. The last time they played was Sunday, when they hosted the Marlins, who are now up to 17 players and two coaches who have tested positive for COVID-19.
The league is looking into how the Marlins’ outbreak began, The Post’s Joel Sherman reported, with one official saying, “Something happened massively disruptive to the process that is not going on anywhere else.”
The Phillies series this week with the Yankees, who were re-routed to play two games against the Orioles, was postponed out of caution. That prudence appears to be warranted.
Four Marlins had tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of Sunday’s game, but the rest of the team still decided as a group to go ahead and play the game.
“All I can tell you is that there was plenty of communication before that game,” Phillies general manager Matt Klentak told reporters Wednesday. “There were others at the league level who knew about the positive test before we did. So the determination was made at that point that it was safe.
“Obviously, the escalation of that came on Monday with nine more positives. That’s what led to a lot of the scheduling changes that are now taking place.”