Major League Baseball officially announced plans for a postseason bubble this year, with the National League series taking place in Texas at Minute Maid Park and Globe Life Field, and the American League playing its series at Dodger Stadium and Petco Park.
With the expanded postseason, Wild Card series will be at home parks of the top four seeds in each league. Additionally, the World Series will be at Globe Life Field, the brand new home of the Texas Rangers.
This is important information for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who will be headed to the postseason for an eighth consecutive year. “I think that’s great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the bubble arrangement.
“There’s some details I’m not too clear on. I understand the first Wild Card Series is at home, and then we kind of get shipped out and bubbled. The family situation, I’m not sure, but I get the idea of a bubble.”
As it currently stands, the Dodgers would host the No. 8 team in the NL standings at Dodger Stadium for the Wild Card Series, and if they are to advance, would next play at Globe Life Field.
If the Dodgers fall to No. 4 in the NL, they would still play the best-of-three Wild Card round at Dodger Stadium, but advancing to the second round would put them at Minute Maid Park.
Roberts lobbies for family in postseason bubble
It remains unclear if managers and coaches will be afforded the luxury as players to have family members with them in the bubble. It’s an issue Roberts strongly believes and hopes should be the case.
“I’m still trying to get clarity. I’ve heard rumblings that the players can have their families but have the potential option to stay at home if they get approved by the league and team. I think staff and coaches won’t have their families with them in the bubble, so if that’s the case I’ll be very disgruntled,” he said.
“Guys haven’t had their families with them the whole year. The sacrifice coaches have made with the players, and we consider each other family, so I don’t know. To be separate because coaches don’t have their own union, there’s a lot to it.
“I don’t want to speak unintelligently on it, but I do know if we have the whole hotel to ourselves as the Dodgers, I would expect the staff and their families to be in the same bubble as the players.”
If players and coaches are going to be forced to stay in a bubble for the entire postseason, it is fair for them to want to have their families with them. The Dodgers have not had a single coronavirus (COVID-19) case this season, and that is with all of them being at home around family members.
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