Mets vs. Yankees weekend Subway Series games postponed

The Subway Series will not happen this weekend.

On Friday, Major League Baseball postponed the Yankees-Mets games that had been scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at Citi Field. That came after the Friday opener was scrapped on Thursday because two Mets — one player and one coach — tested positive for the coronavirus while the team was in Miami.

The Mets announced that the traveling party will quarantine and continue to be tested for COVID-19. They have no workouts scheduled throughout the weekend and aren’t scheduled to play a game until Tuesday, when they host the Marlins.

“Out of an abundance of caution and to allow for additional testing and contact tracing to be performed within the New York Mets’ organization, the games [have been postponed],” MLB said in a statement. “Major League Baseball will continue to provide updates as necessary.”

After learning of the two positive tests Thursday, those individuals and an unspecified number of others — anyone deemed to have been in close contact with them — remained in Miami. They also continue to be tested.

The rest of the Mets took a chartered flight back to New York on Thursday, as originally planned, “adhering to all the recommended safety precautions,” the team said in a statement.

They were retested twice in quick succession: late Thursday night/early Friday morning upon arriving in New York and again later Friday morning.

MLB expected to get the results of those tests late Friday, a source said.

Neither general manager Brodie Van Wagenen nor anyone else from the Mets was made available to reporters.

The game Friday was supposed to be the first of six Subway Series games in 10 days. The Mets’ postponed games count is up to four: at the Marlins from Thursday and home against the Yankees from Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Making up at least that many postponed games will mean doubleheaders. Because of the havoc the coronavirus has wrought on MLB’s schedule, the owners and players agreed to limit doubleheader games to seven innings each, adopting what has been the norm in the minor leagues for years. That allows teams to squeeze in as many games as possible — and thus make as much money as possible — while lessening the physical strain and injury risk.

The Mets are scheduled to play the affected teams next week, too, hosting the Marlins on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at Citi Field and visiting the Yankees on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Yankee Stadium.

One option to make up a couple of those games: Monday, when the Mets and Yankees are supposed to be off and could play once or twice, if the forthcoming coronavirus testing results allow for it.

Friday was the 26th consecutive day that MLB did not have all 30 teams playing. The Mets are the fourth team to receive a positive test and have games postponed, following the Marlins, Cardinals and Reds.

The Reds represent something of a best-case scenario. After one player tested positive, they were out of action for four days, missing three games. No one else in the organization was found to have COVID-19.

The names of those who tested positive have not been revealed. MLB’s policy is that a club cannot make the identities public unless that person gives the team permission to do so.

The Mets were not the only club to receive a positive test result recently. According to data released Friday by MLB and the Players Association, there were seven new positives out of 12,485 samples — 0.06%. They do not provide information about how many people were tested, only how many tests were administered (samples).

Of those seven positives, three were players and four were staff members.

Since monitoring testing began in early July — after intake testing was completed at the start of camp — 0.1% of the samples yielded new positives. That is 82 of 78,612.

With David Lennon