Jays take schedule hits in stride
Ross Atkins isn’t about to add the title of epidemiologist to his job title — the workload of a baseball general manager is quite enough in these challenging days for the sport.
But in t he r apidly changing world of Major League Baseball 2020 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 postponement docket.
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- game schedule on the road.
“I don’t think there is a person that 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 will 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’ve avoided contracting the virus that has already affected operations of two of the 10 teams they are scheduled to play, the Florida Marlins and the Phillies.
Atkins remains cautiously confident that 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 travelling party on its first road trip through Boston, Tampa Bay and Washington. “We’re working on something we’re not experts in. It’s such a great challenge we have in front of us.”
The trip so far has been instructive to the Jays as they prepare for what they hope will still be a home portion of their schedule at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field beginning on Aug. 11.
“It’s actually been helpful for us,” Atkins 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.
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 are in a pandemic. We all have to be willing to adapt and to adjust and remember that is the backdrop to everything as we try to pull off what we started.”