The coronavirus has already disrupted the baseball season less than a week after Opening Day. An outbreak within the Miami Marlins’ clubhouse has suspended the team’s season for at least seven games, creating ripple effects across the league.

The league postponed four straight Philadelphia Phillies’ games because the team hosted a weekend series with the Marlins, who have 17 reported COVID-19 cases between players and coaches. Multiple postponements have been issued for the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals because each team had either Philadelphia or Washington on the schedule.

With MLB’s 60-game season set to be played over 67 days, it likely won’t be possible for all of those matchups to be made up. If the season is completed, teams won’t finish with the same number of games played.

The Yankees, Orioles and Phillies will be paid for any games this week that their teams don’t make up, according to The Athletic. The league and the players’ union agreed in March for players to receive prorated salaries based on the number of games played by their teams, but an exception is being made in this case.

Players are already set to make 37% of their original salaries with the season shortened from 162 to 60 games. Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole, for example, will earn $13.33 million instead of the $36 million salary New York agreed to pay him in December.

MLB has not yet committed to paying Miami’s players for 60 games, per the report. It’s uncertain what will happen with the Marlins’ schedule beyond this week.

The final standings are expected to be based on winning percentage if every team doesn’t play the same number of games. That’s what the league did in 1981, when teams played anywhere from 103 to 110 games because of a mid-season players’ strike.

In the 1972 season, the Boston Red Sox finished a half-game out of first place and missed the playoffs because they played one fewer game than the division champion Detroit Tigers.

The regular season is scheduled to conclude on Sept. 27 with the playoffs set to begin shortly afterward. Sixteen of the league’s 30 teams will make the postseason.

Gerrit Cole Yankees Phillies
Gerrit Cole #45 of the New York Yankees throws a pitch against Kurt Suzuki #28 of the Washington Nationals during the fifth inning in the game at Nationals Park on July 23, 2020 in Washington, DC. Rob Carr/Getty Images
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