These are uncertain times in Major League Baseball.
The Tigers were supposed to have a home-and-home series this week against the Cardinals. Then it was supposed be in Detroit. Then it was postponed all together. The club is supposed to resume its schedule Friday in Pittsburgh. We'll see if COVID-19 allows it.
"We’ll just ad-lib and do the best we can with it," Ron Gardenhire said Tuesday morning. "Can’t control it, so no sense in getting too upset about it. We just have to play it through like we’ve been told to."
The Marlins were the first team to be hit by the virus. Now it's the Cardinals, who've had at least six players test positive in the past few days, including nine-time All-Star Yadier Molina. With postponements piling up, there's real concern as to whether MLB can finish the season.
For now, the 62-year-old Gardenhire is remaining hopeful. He's stared down his share of health scares in the past.
"We’re here to play," he said. "There’s a lot going on in the game that I’m as worried as anybody else. I don’t think my level of anxiety is higher than a lot of other people’s, because I’ve been through cancer, had a diabetic problem. So (my level of optimism) hasn’t changed much. I’m fine being here in this clubhouse. As long as our guys are doing the right stuff, I’m good with it, I’m happy and we’ll go.
"When you start seeing what happened with St. Louis, again, you always think about it and you start getting worried. But I’m not going to run out on these guys unless it gets really bad in our camp. Then I would have a hard time, it would really scare me. So hopefully we’ll do the right things and we’ll be okay and the rest of the teams will do the right things."
Given the outbreaks across baseball, Gardenhire has been reinforcing the message he's preached since the Tigers reconvened for Summer Camp.
"We’ve had lots of meetings, and anytime we see something we have more meetings about it," he said. "Just talking about, your responsibilities as a player is to your family and to this baseball family. You have to take care of yourself off the field and do all of the right things, wear the mask, stay inside. It's not easy."
If MLB does get through the season, a playoff dillema lingers. How do you order the standings when teams haven't played the same number of games? Commissioner Rob Manfred has suggested the league will go by winning percentage, but that could pose problems, too.
How do you choose between a team with 30 wins in 50 games and a team with 35 wins in 60 games? Should there be a threshold for games played? Is that fair for the teams that can't meet it for factors outside their control?
"Personally, I don’t like it," Gardenhire said. "You try to play the games, but it might be impossible to get all these games in with all the delays that we’ve had. You’re talking days off being taken away down the road when you might need them, double-headers all over the place. But I think the commissioner is trying to do everything possible to get these games in and get everybody on a level playing field. We’ll see what they finally come up with at the end.
"If it ends up that you have a good season and a good record and you're percentage points away, then we’ll have something to yell about the rest of the season. We can scream through the playoffs, the whole package. So we’ll just let it play out and see what happens."
Uncertain times indeed.