Conforto adjusting to social distancing
NEW YORK — Michael Conforto witnessed this week a completely different facility than the Citi Field he’s grown to know over the past five years.
“You used to have freedom to just walk wherever you want,” Conforto said. “That’s not the case at all.”
The Mets outfielder, 100% recovered from his recent Grade 1 oblique strain, praised the club’s attention to detail regarding COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Player lockers are separated by at least 10 feet in the clubhouse. The batting cages, weight room and shower use are limited. Masks are basically part of the uniform now.
“There’s never a moment where someone isn’t watching you, making sure you’re doing the right thing,” Conforto said. “Even if guys kind of forget out of habit, we’re making sure we’re picking each other up and trying to stay healthy.”
Brodie Van Wagenen walks around the grounds reminding players to stay six feet apart, but Conforto said the general manager actually prefers it if they’re 10 feet apart.
“We’ve kind of gone above and beyond what MLB has mandated,” Conforto said. “If I was to test positive, the point is to try to make sure I’ve never been around somebody, within six feet, for more than 15 minutes. That’s kind of the baseline to make sure the virus will stay, if someone does get infected, it will stay just with that person and not spread.
“Everything is different here. They’re really utilizing the space that’s available to us. It’s been really crazy, but it’s encouraging. We’re starting to see how we can make this thing work, we can still get our work in. We just have to be responsible, follow the rules and also get our work in at the same time.” and then we’ll keep progressing as it goes.”
Seth Lugo provided a quick response when asked if he had any reservations about playing this season amid the pandemic.
“No,” he said. “I live my life to play baseball. So when they said we’re playing, I was ready to go.”
As of Saturday evening, no Mets player had indicated he was opting out of the season — either for health-related reasons or otherwise. Around the league, seven players have so far opted out with Dodgers pitcher David Price being the biggest MLB name to announce he won’t play this year.
Three individuals on the Mets staff (two players and one coach) were unaccounted for during the team’s first full-squad workout on Friday. Marcus Stroman, Amed Rosario and bench coach Hensley Meulens also did not come to camp at Citi Field on Saturday.
It is certainly atypical for players on the Opening Day roster to be absent on the first day of training, and it led to some social-media speculation that the players may have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Rojas, though, indicated Stroman and Rosario’s absences were not health related.