Opening Day 2021 gave baseball fans plenty of reasons to be excited on Thursday, though New York Mets and Washington Nationals supporters might not find much solace in the season getting underway.

Major League Baseball postponed Thursday's game between the two National League East teams because of a Nationals outbreak of COVID-19. It was hoped the series could be resumed on Saturday, but that is not the case.

Jeff Passan of ESPN was among those to report MLB canceled the entirety of the Nationals-Mets series after a fourth member of the Nats organization registered a positive test.

The Mets will now begin their season in Philadelphia against the Phillies on Monday. Washington's start date is unknown, with Passan iterating the picture will become clearer when the Nats have a better grasp as to the extent of the outbreak.

It really is too bad baseball fans were robbed of this series.

Thursday's game was supposed to feature the best pitching matchup of the day, with Mets ace Jacob deGrom squaring off against Nationals right-hander Max Scherzer. Both teams have young exciting superstars, notably Washington's Juan Soto and New York shortstop Francisco Lindor, who just signed a ten-year extension with the club.

MLB had a very strong handle on the virus during spring training, in part because it had strategies in place after going through more of a “trial and error” phase especially early in the 2020 season.

But the sudden outbreak in Washington serves as a reminder COVID-19 is very much still prevalent–and likely to remain prevalent–in 2021.