The coronavirus has been a real thing for real, obvious reasons, in baseball.
The Marlins having four more players test positive for the coronavirus after 11 players and two coaches were sidelined, putting their season on pause, took it up another notch. It certainly caught the attention of Lucas Giolito and the White Sox.
Giolito called it “a nice wakeup call.”
“The news of the Marlins is definitely scary,” Giolito said Tuesday. “It shows how fast this virus can spread around the clubhouse and it definitely raised the level of concern maybe for some guys that weren’t taking the protocols seriously or understanding what is going on. That might have been a nice wakeup call, not only for our team but around the league.’’
The Sox wondered for about 24 hours whether they would have their manager, Rick Renteria, with them while he went for precautionary testing after waking up Monday feeling slightly congested. Renteria checked out fine and was in the dugout managing his team.
“As far as what we’re doing as a team, we’re holding each other accountable more so than ever,” Giolito said. “No matter how annoying that might be. We are doing our best to keep our team healthy so we can stay on the field.”
Players are creatures of habits and routines, so living with each other during a pandemic and going to work has challenges beyond adhering to strict guidelines.
“It’s difficult to just show up, have our summer camp, get to the baseball season and everybody be 100 percent completely on board with every single rule and regulation we have in place,” Giolito said. “It’s really, really difficult to do when we also have to think about getting to compete at the highest level every single day.
“So paying attention to the news around the league, obviously the Marlins is a really big one. For us it just is more of a reminder of, ‘hey we are not in a normal time right now at all.’ We’ve done a very very good job to this point but after seeing what is going on the last couple of days, more than ever we really have to make the sacrifices and put ourselves in as safe a position possible.”
Giolito, who struggled on opening night allowing seven runs in 3 2/3 innings in a 10-5 loss to the Twins, said his frame of mind on the mound was not unusual. There were no jitters or distractions, he said. Just maybe “going too fast.” He starts the Sox’ series finale against the Indians Wednesday, opposed by Shane Bieber, who struck out 14 Royals on Opening Day.
“To sum it up, I was basically not driving down the mound the way I should be,” he said. “We were able to make those adjustments over the last few days.”
Asked how confident he was that baseball would make it to the 60-game finish line, Gioligo said, “I’m trying to be confident.”
“I’m trying to separate my mind from that. Because if we start thinking about the what ifs, ‘are we going to be able to make it through a season, is this going to happen?’ It kind of takes our eyes away from the prize, which is we do have to show up to the field and we have to come together as a team and be prepared to win a baseball game every single day. What happens when the game is over, when it’s all said and done, it’s OK, let’s get back to the hotel, let’s make sure we’re limiting contact, doing what we can do to be proactive.
“It’s hard for me to say how confident I am that we’ll get through the season, obviously the news over the last couple of days isn’t ideal. All we can do is control what we can control, and that’s following protocol.”
