Players start reporting for testing
Yoán Moncada has spent the past couple of months working out in what he called a “controlled and limited environment” in Florida, where the White Sox slugger could continue to get at-bats while protecting himself from the coronavirus.
That’s a good description of the environment that greeted him upon his return to Chicago.
Players began reporting to their teams and home ballparks Wednesday in the most significant step yet as Major League Baseball presses ahead with its plan for a 60-game sprint of a season. Most players underwent a battery of health checks, not only for COVID-19 but also for any other lingering ailments from spring training, ahead of planned workouts beginning Friday and Saturday.
“We were doing workouts by time, you know? You have to reserve a time. I wasn’t interacting with a lot of people there,” Moncada said of his sessions in Florida. “The last couple of weeks I started lifting a little bit. I was hitting with limitations that we had during this situation. But I feel good. I’m ready to go.”
Much like other clubs, the White Sox intend to split their 60-man roster into two groups, one working out in the morning and the other in the afternoon. All players will have their temperatures checked multiple times each day, observe increased social distancing and get accustomed to stringent safeguards that MLB has put into place for the season.
“That’s going to be different to see and feel as a team,” Moncada said. “We’ll have to wait and see Friday how it goes.”
The Yankees won’t hold their first full-team workout until Saturday, even though manager Aaron Boone said players began intake testing Wednesday. That’s when he plans to address the team for the first time — also in waves.
“We’ll have to get creative with how we communicate,” said Boone, who plans to make the same speech three or four times.
Faced with the prospect of playing 60 games in 66 days, time-consuming safety protocols, the responsibility to remain diligent healthwise off the field and the general anxiety of working amid a pandemic, Boone believes focus and toughness can be as important to a team this season as baserunning or bullpen management.
“How do you deal with that mentally and emotionally?” Boone asked. “How you’re able to separate that out when you take the field each and every night? There’s an advantage to be had there.”
Orioles general manager Mike Elias said there had been no positive tests for COVID-19 among players and staff who were examined Wednesday, but he acknowledged that “it’s going to be an ongoing process.”
And despite rising numbers of COVID-19 across the country, and a few players opting out, most players and executives have been bullish on the season taking place. They believe in protocols hammered out during lengthy negotiations between MLB and its players’ association and are eager to provide fans with some much-needed diversion.
Cubs coach: COVID-19 led to month-long quarantine
CHICAGO » An emotional Chicago Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy
is recovering from a severe case of COVID-19 that quarantined him for 30 days. Hottovy, 38, broke down as he detailed a harrowing ordeal during a conference cal. The Cubs resume workouts Friday.
“It’s still kind of raw in the fact that we just got through it and to relive it,” said Hottovy, in his second season as the Cubs’ pitching coach. “Obviously, it affected us pretty significantly for a month. I felt it was important for me to talk through what I went through because too much of what’s out there is the easy stories of what people go through with this.”
The former major leaguer learned he had the virus on the third day he felt ill, following a nasal test. He isolated in a spare bedroom with symptoms that got so bad he spent part of one day at the hospital.
Hottovy tested negative about two weeks ago and still gets winded easily. He is grateful his wife, Andrea, and young children did not get sick.
Hottovy had a relentless fever, difficulty breathing, dehydration and an increased heart rate.
He got depressed, wondering if he could have done more even though he wore masks and gloves outside the house prior to becoming ill.
“I do still believe for society and for people, having sports and having baseball ... is important,” he said. “But at the same token, one little misstep, one little contact situation by one person, can derail an entire industry.”