White Sox trust in protocol as Cardinals’ COVID-19 outbreak impacts Central

The White Sox are in Milwaukee. So, too, are the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals were supposed to be in Michigan by now, starting a four-game series with the Detroit Tigers. But they never played any games over the weekend in Wisconsin and won't play any this week in Michigan, either, as the number of positive COVID-19 tests on that club continues to rise.

As the numbers grow inside the Cardinals' traveling party - up to 13 on Monday, including seven players - the scheduling impact on the Central divisions does, too.

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The White Sox started a four-game, home-and-home series with the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday, their opponents having just sat around for three days unable to play against the Cardinals, who were holed up in a hotel. The White Sox themselves are scheduled to take on the Cardinals next week. The Field of Dreams game, which was set to be played between the two teams in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, is reportedly off. But that three-game series isn't vanishing from the calendar, unless of course the Cardinals' outbreak isn't under control by then.

COVID-induced postponements were initially limited to the East, where the Miami Marlins' outbreak threw several teams' schedules into chaos. Neither the Marlins nor the Philadelphia Phillies have played for a week. The New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals had games postponed. Now that the Cardinals are experiencing something similar, the Central divisions are feeling those effects, too.

Players, of course, are prone to taking things one day at a time. Even that can sometimes be too big a picture for them, and they'll narrow their field to one at-bat or one pitch at a time. And that seems to be the way baseball, in general, is operating when it comes to keeping the fragile 2020 season on the tracks.

But a big-picture view is going to be necessary for these guys, if only because it won't take much - or the actions of many - to send so many teams' seasons into disarray.

"If you want to continue to play, you have to follow the rules," White Sox starting pitcher Gio González said last week. "We have no excuses, we've been given the rules since the beginning. We can't control what's going on outside, but we can try to do our best to control what's inside."

The White Sox have been nothing but confident in the league's health-and-safety measures since the start of "Summer Camp" and have repeatedly said, to a man, that all they can do is follow the rules and trust that everything will be OK.

Indeed, it's felt safer being inside a big league ballpark than it has walking down crowded city streets.

But as González pointed out, there is so much that is going on outside the White Sox bubble, and when the entire league isn't a part of an enclosed bubble like the NBA or the NHL, it doesn't take much to disrupt that feeling of safety.

"I think we've got a lot of trust in each other," White Sox reliever Aaron Bummer said Monday. "And at the end of the day, we've got to trust ourselves and kind of put the team first for a bit. Whether it means putting ourselves in a little bubble on the road, where we're not really leaving the hotel or not really doing anything, those are all the things that we've realized need to be done in order to keep the season going.

"It's scary to see all the things that are going on, but we like to believe that as long as we follow the protocols that MLB gave us, we follow the stuff that we've talked about as a team, at the end of the day, hopefully we mitigate all that risk and we come out staying healthy.

"As soon as you get to a spot where it's relevant to you, you get a little bit more on edge. I think everybody came into Milwaukee, changing hotels and doing all these things, because the Cardinals are there and they've had an outbreak. So I think it's definitely a reality check and just a bit of motivation to keep strong with the protocols that are in place."

As Major League Baseball attempts to strengthen its on- and off-field protocols in the wake of the Marlins' outbreak, the repeated message from White Sox players during "Summer Camp" that it will take personal responsibility on the part of the players to ensure these kinds of outbreaks don't happen seems to be the biggest piece of the staying-safe puzzle.

Marlins players reportedly went out and went to the hotel bar while in Atlanta for an exhibition game before Opening Day. Cardinals players reportedly visited a casino.

The White Sox insist they've stuck with the program and will continue to do so, but it's becoming evident that it's no longer on just one group of players: It's on the entire league. And no one can assure what 900 players will do.

"Honestly, we've done a great job of laying out what the expectations are … for what we're going to do on the road and at home," Bummer said. "So I think the outbreaks and the more positive tests just heighten your sense of security and the realness behind it.

"Would I say a lot of people are nervous? Absolutely. But you've got to have trust in the process that if we do what we're told, if we do the things that we're supposed to do, we've shrunk the risk as much as possible. So we've got to have faith in that to be able to keep moving forward and keep the focus on baseball."

The White Sox will see the Brewers for the next four days before playing hosts to the division-rival Cleveland Indians beginning Friday on the South Side. The Indians just played a four-game weekend series against the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis, where they used the same visiting clubhouse the Cardinals did before leaving for Milwaukee and experiencing baseball's second outbreak. Then it's three games against the Tigers, who are sitting out this week after their series with the Cardinals got postponed. Then it's three games with the Cardinals. Then it's four more with the Tigers before a series against the Cubs, who are scheduled to play the Cardinals in St. Louis this weekend.

And so one team in the region experiencing an outbreak touches so many others.

"It's an obstacle course for everyone," González said. "We are thinking, ‘What can we do to kind of steer away from what's going on and try to follow the guidelines and be as safe as we can be?' We are sticking to the game plan, but the outside world doesn't stop, it continues to move forward. We go back home to our homes, there's nothing else we can do.

"We're trying our hardest to stick to the guidelines and we're trying to focus on what we can focus on and play the game until they tell us, ‘That's it.' It is a journey, it is a work in progress.

"We are trying our best, we're wearing our masks, we're trying to follow every step of the way, but it's a lot to remember, a lot to focus on and then take that to the field. There's so many things you have to focus on before you get to the field. And then worry about it when you get to the field. And then after the field. It's a lot to take in. It's all a process for everyone."

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