ESPN’s Jeff Passan has reported that 11 out of 30 Marlins, along with two coaches, have tested postitive for COVID-19. The Marlins played the Phillies on Sunday, while three players were ruled out after they tested positive. MLB has suspended Monday night’s games against for the Phillies, who play the Yankees, and the Marlins, who play the Orioles.

Joel Sherman reported that there was no discussion about shutting down the season during the weekly owners call.

Everyone knew that there would be postie tests, probably a lot of them, heading into the season. However, when the season started, we were all able to focus on baseball. The baseball community had a lot to talk about with new rules, adjusting to no fans at the game, political statements being, and—oh yeah—the actual games. The bubble of the escapism that baseball provided this weekend was popped by this news. Now the league has crashed back into the reality America is in right now.

Rob Manfred did a interview with the in-house MLB Network. He said the plan will be to play Wednesday and Thursday in Baltimore rather than Miami. “It’s not a positive thing,” Manfred said. “But I don’t see it as a nightmare. We’ve built protocols to allow us to continue to play. WE have the expanded rosters. That’s why we have the pool of additional players. We think we can keep people safe and continue to play.”

Manfred said that there are scenarios where the season would be suspended or cancelled. If a team lost so many players that they would be non-competitive. Manfred also said the league would shut down if the virus became widespread where it would be a health threat.

If we have learned something about the disease in the past few months, it’s that it’s a better approach to be over cautious to avoid the risk of the situation getting worse. The Marlins and Phillies should not play until at least Friday so they are certain that there are no lingering positive cases that have yet to show up.

Dr. Zachary Binney, an epidemiologist at Emory University’s Oxford College, was interviewed for The Athletic for a column by Jayson Stark and Ken Rosenthal questioning why the Marlins played on Sunday when they found four positive tests on the team that weekend. “is that this disease can take several days to show itself – by which I mean you don’t test positive immediately after you’ve been exposed. You test positive three, five, seven days after you’ve been exposed. So it’s possible that some of these players or staff are incubating the infection right now and could turn up positive when they get the results back from another round of testing, say, in a couple of days.”

Baseball is walking on a tight rope right now. Being cautious now may be annoying and cause logistical headaches. But it can save baseball from a league wide outbreak, causing the Jenga tower to collapse.

Everyone has different risk tolerances. Professional sports could have a different benchmark to shut it down than college sports played amateurs. It is important to have an idea of what suspending or canceling the season would look like. It seems like the only way things become untenable for a pro league is if someone affiliated with the league dies from the virus. This is uncharted waters, but the MLB should make it known specifically what it would have to look like for the league to be suspended. If they are extra cautious and take their time, the league can hopefully avoid that tragedy.

The bubble apparently was not feasible for an entire season. It is on the league to do everything possible to keep players safe while they travel to different cities. There is still reason to be optimistic about the MLB season happening, but it is important to preach caution with the Marlins.