JAYS TAKE SCHEDULE HITS IN STRIDE
GM Atkins lauds young squad for meeting challenges season has presented thus far
Ross Atkins isn’t about to add the word epidemiologist to his job description — the workload of a baseball general manager is quite enough in these challenging times.
But in the rapidly changing world of Major League Baseball in 2020 — and most of those changes haven’t been for the good — Atkins has become an expert in how a professional sports team can survive — or at least navigate its way through — a pandemic.
Every day brings a new challenge for those around the baseball world.
On Friday, it was the St. Louis Cardinals announcing a couple of positive tests, the latest blow resulting in another game added to the docket of postponements.
The previous day, the Jays had their weekend series in Philadelphia similarly placed on hold after a couple of Phillies personnel tested positive for COVID-19.
Never a dull moment, and certainly never an easy one for a team that was originally scheduled to play the first 16 of its 60 games on the road.
“I don’t think there is a person who thought this would be seamless,” Atkins said during a Zoom news conference on Friday. “We knew coming in that (positive tests and postponements) could be an issue. We’ll focus on what we can control and do our best to stay safe.”
While the Jays have been affected significantly from the outset — having been rejected by at least three cities, including Toronto, as a place to play their home games — they have soldiered on. And so far they have avoided contracting the virus that has already bogged down the operations of two of the 10 teams they are scheduled to play — the Florida Marlins and Phillies.
Even as the weekend series in Philly was cancelled (the team remained in Washington for workouts at Nationals Park on Saturday and Sunday before a planned flight to Atlanta to resume play on Tuesday against the Braves), Atkins remains cautiously confident the season will carry on.
At the same time, the GM’s prime goal is making sure the Jays find a way to enhance the extensive MLB protocols already in place to keep the players and staff healthy and safe.
“Our players have been disciplined and embracing the challenge,” said Atkins, who has been with the Jays on the team’s first road trip through Boston, Tampa Bay and Washington.
“The first thought that came into our minds is the work that has gone into it. We’re working on something we’re not experts in. It’s such a great challenge we have in front of us.
“We don’t interact with the other team. The closest would be the first baseman (holding a runner) or the hitter/catcher interaction. We don’t touch any part of a stadium that another team has been touching.”
The trip so far has been instructive for the Jays as they prepare for what they hope will be a home portion of their schedule at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field beginning Aug. 11.
Construction at the downtown stadium has been forging on to get the triple A facility as close to big-league standards as possible. Atkins and Jays staff have been taking notes.
“It’s actually been helpful for us,” he said of navigating the procedures at various stadiums through seven games and two exhibitions over the past 10 days. “We were prepared in Buffalo and had a plan, but we’ve been able to come up with some new ideas because of the things we’ve seen on different road trips, and small adaptations we can make.
“The restrictions are a lot to ask for but … we understand this virus is very strong and doesn’t have borders.”
Though many MLB teams have been transparent in announcing positive tests, the Jays have opted to keep the information internal. Other than undisclosed players who tested positive in June, the team has reported no further incidents.
“We fortunately haven’t had anyone that has had severe symptoms … we’ve had one or two with very mild symptoms,” Atkins said.
“We have really focused with the utmost power on this virus and what it has done with the world. We have been very fortunate.”
Atkins says Jays staff have been meticulous in contact tracing and following isolation protocols to prevent an outbreak.
Overall, Atkins says, Jays players have handled the adversity as well or better than could be expected.
“Our players have been great, our staff has been great. We’ll continue to focus on the protocols and do the best that we can. The protocols are obviously very strict and we’re doing the best that we can to control what we can control.
“We’re in a pandemic. We all have to be willing to adapt and to adjust, and we have to remember that’s the backdrop to everything as we try to pull off what we started.”