Oakland A’s manager Bob Melvin pictured here on Feb 13th during spring training says that the worst thing to happen this season is to stop playing. After Thursday the A’s will have missed six out of eight scheduled games due to being postponed (photo from San Francisco Chronicle)

By Jerry Feitelberg

Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that the series between the A’s and the Mariners had been postponed. For the second day in a row, none of the A’s players or staff had tested positive for Covid-19. That is excellent news. MLB and the A’s are using an abundance of caution to allow for extra testing.

The A’s will now have to make up the five games and face the prospects of playing four doubleheaders this month. The A’s are 22-12 so far and have twenty-six games left to play. The A’s will host the Astros for four games starting September 7th.

It will become a five-game series when they play a doubleheader to make up for last Sunday’s postponement in Houston. After the Houston series, the A’s fly to Texas to play the Rangers. They will play a doubleheader on September 12th.

The A’s then fly to Seattle and will have another doubleheader with the Mariners on September 14th. The A’s have another doubleheader with the Mariners on September 26th. The season ends on the 27th. There is no question that Bob Melvin will have to be at his best preparing his starting rotation ready to face the challenges presented by the schedule.

The A’s have been quarantined in Houston since Sunday. The team will return to the Bay Area instead of traveling to Seattle. The team has not named the player or the staff member that has been infected. That person probably will stay in Houston until he is better.