ST. LOUIS _ The Cardinals, who haven't played a game this month, have almost all their marching orders for the rest of the season as Major League Baseball tries to get them as close to 60 games played as possible.
They face an imposing task of 11 doubleheaders and 53 games in 44 days, with one postponed doubleheader against Detroit still unaccounted for, leaving them at 58 games for the season. The Cardinals last played on July 29 in Minnesota.
On Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals will play the first in their raft of doubleheaders, facing the White Sox at Chicago in a twin bill that starts at 12:10.
Another doubleheader will come across town Monday afternoon, beginning at 4:15 p.m. against the Cubs, with yet another doubleheader slated for Wednesday at Wrigley Field, beginning at 1:20. The third game of a series in St. Louis wiped out by coronavirus concerns last weekend will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Sept. 5 at Wrigley.
The Cubs will be the home team in each first game of the doubleheader and the Cardinals the home team in the second.
A three-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates at Busch which was postponed this past Monday through Wednesday, will be made up in two doubleheaders.
The first will be here on Aug. 27, a mutual off day for both teams, beginning at 2:15 p.m. The other doubleheader will be on Sept. 18 at Pittsburgh, beginning at 3:05.
And finally, the two-game series with Minnesota here on Sept. 8-9 has been compressed into a 2:15 p.m. doubleheader on Sept. 8 to give the Cardinals another day off in September. They will have no off days in August and two in September
The postponed doubleheader between the Cardinals and Tigers, originally scheduled for Thursday in Detroit, will be rescheduled at a later date _ perhaps at the end of the season if it is necessary, for playoff purposes.
Of the Cardinals' remaining 53 games that have been scheduled, 29 will be on the road.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last team to have a similar schedule was the 1975 Minnesota Twins, who had 54 games in 48 days, also including 11 doubleheaders, which were nine innings for each game rather than seven innings this year.
Four of the off-days for the Twins that year were for the All-Star break.
