Roenicke expects full house at Red Sox camp

BOSTON -- Eagerly awaiting the resumption of baseball, Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke arrived in Boston over the weekend and met with his coaches to discuss how the team will organize workouts to prepare for the 60-game season.

Roenicke, entering his first season at the helm, looks forward to the arrival of players at Fenway Park on Wednesday, though the day will mainly be spent with COVID-19 testing and other health protocols.

The team is expected to hold the first workout of their three-week Summer Camp on Friday. At this point, Roenicke hasn’t heard of any Red Sox players opting out of playing in 2020.

“I don’t know any of our guys who are on the fence about playing. They’ve told me that they’re ready to go,” Roenicke said. “Is there a couple guys that are concerned? Yeah, there is. But as far as I know -- what they’ve told me from today, yesterday, the day before -- I expect everybody to come in.”

The results of Wednesday’s medical tests will determine how full a house the Red Sox will have for Friday’s workout.

“I hope we have everybody,” Roenicke said. “The reason we wouldn’t is [positive COVID-19 tests]. Hopefully these tests get back and they’re all clean.”

While the Twins asked two coaches in their 60s -- Bob McClure and Bill Evers -- to sit out this year over safety concerns due to their age, the 63-year-old Roenicke is confident about his health heading into the season.

“I don’t feel a lot of concern about myself. Just talking to [trainer] Brad Pearson and talking to Dr. Ronan, it’s just about being smart about what I do. I’m really not that concerned. I still don’t feel I’m old, I guess,” Roenicke said. “I feel good health-wise. My doctors all say I’m healthy. I feel good that way. Obviously, it’s a concern because you don’t know how it affects different people.

“Whether you’re 20 years old or whether you’re 63 as I am, you still have to be concerned about trying to stay away from it. … We’re doing as much as we can, and like I said, we’ve put [so many protocols] into place here; I don’t think it’s a whole lot different than when I was home and just having to go out to the grocery store and the different things I did there. So, hopefully we can stay as clean as possible. We know it’s there. We know players are going to get it.”

After more than three months of being confined to his hometown in California, Roenicke can’t wait to start doing what he loves again.

“The players are all excited about coming back and playing baseball again, front office, medical staff, everybody is really excited about getting this going again,” Roenicke said. “I talked about uncomfortable -- it was so uncomfortable being home when we know in our normal lives this is what we’d be doing.”

The biggest challenge right now is figuring out all the logistics.

“That’s really important to us -- trying to get game conditions,” Roenicke said. “Probably after the first five, six days, we’ll be playing intrasquad games, and these will go on all through camp. At the end we’re working on getting an exhibition game or two exhibition games, whatever we can. But we’re also a little concerned about having to travel out and play somebody, and then depending on what’s happening with the schedule and how that works.”