After Back-to-Back Rainouts, When Will A's Play Again?

The COVID-19 pandemic reportedly has baseball owners ready to shut down spring training for the moment and possibly push the start of the season back.

For the second day running, the A’s were rained out of a Cactus League game Thursday when the extended downpour in the Valley of the Sun wiped out the A’s-Dodgers game at Camelback Ranch.

On Wednesday, the A’s game against the Angels in Tempe was called off.

The real question now is just when the A’s will take the field again in the wake of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported Thursday that Major League Baseball is close to shutting down spring training games in both Florida and Arizona for the final 10 days of spring training.

Will the teams continue to stay in their respective spring sites, train and possibly play intrasquad games? There’s no word yet.

And will the regular season get pushed back? No word on that either, although news reportedly will come later today with MLB owners having taken part in a conference call. A decision on pushing back the start of the season was called “likely.”

Talking with the A’s media Thursday morning, manager Bob Melvin said he was watching Wednesday night when the NBA shut down the season for the time being after COVID-19 hit the Utah Jazz roster.

“I think what hit home was what happened last night in the NBA, when clubhouses are now in jeopardy,” Melvin said. “And I think they handled it beautifully.

“Every day this thing gets bigger and bigger. And certainly, sports are not the most important thing at this point in time. But I think in general, any time that you have something this severe, you need to get ahead of it.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued guidelines that called for all gatherings of 250 or more be cancelled or postponed until at least the end of March. The City of Oakland has issued a ban on gatherings of 1,000 or more people at its facilities.

The Coliseum Authority has said it plans to close the doors at the Coliseum and the Arena until April 1, which would ostensibly take playing the games in front of an empty stadium off the table.