The Washington Nationals will not play any spring games until at least March, a source close to the team told ESPN’s Buster Olney.
The team’s official statement did not address the issue.
The Nationals played the first four games in the new baseball calendar, and the team’s spring training schedule is set to resume on April 19.
This means the Nationals are unlikely to play a spring game in late March, although the team has not yet announced its timetable for a return to spring training.
If the Nationals do not play a series in late April, they would have to play at least four games on the road in March.
In other words, the team is likely to need to play two-plus games in its home park before it could return to a spring training calendar that would see them play in the National League East, with a spring-training slate featuring a home opener and home games against the Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies.
More MLB coverage: The Nationals have a very short spring schedule and it’s not like they’re getting away with not playing spring games, a Nationals source told Olney, citing the team not playing two spring games in 2019 and 2019-2020.
That means the team would need to do two more spring games to play in their current calendar.
The source also said that the Nationals would need the ability to play four spring games on a regular-season basis, something the team could not do for several years before the 2019-20 season, when it would not play at the MLB All-Star Game.
The Nationals did not respond to a request for comment.
The Braves, Cubs and Nationals also are not expected to play spring games this season, though they could play a couple of exhibition games before the end of the season.
The Phillies will play the final two games of the regular season before their 2019 All-star break.