Brian Cashman was in his car on his way to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday morning when I asked what message he’s had for his team, if any, now that the Yankees are two weeks away from Opening Night on July 23 at Nationals Park, Gerrit Cole against Max Scherzer.

“All in,” the Yankees' general manager said. “We all have to be all in, at the ballpark and away from the ballpark. We have to understand and appreciate, every single day. And at the same time, we have to have perspective about where we all fit into the context of what’s happening in the country and even the world. There’s so many levels of this, sometimes you don’t know where to start.”

Cashman paused.

“That’s the message or the theme, or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “If you opt in, you need to be all in. And all of us involved in the sport can’t lose sight of something:

“We’re all getting this chance to do jobs that we love when millions of other people can’t do the same.”

• Yankees' 2020 regular-season schedule

Cashman knows how much can change between now and Opening Night. He knows, the way we all know, that even just two weeks is a lifetime in the world of the coronavirus. He knows how quickly things can change, and not just because of this virus. It was Saturday that Masahiro Tanaka was pitching in a simulated game when Giancarlo Stanton hit a line drive back up the middle, exit velocity 112 mph, hitting Tanaka in the head and sending him to hospital.

Tanaka was later diagnosed with a concussion, but he was released from Columbia Presbyterian without having to spend the night in the hospital. He was back at the ballpark the next day and by all accounts is fine. But nobody knew that when Tanaka was lying on the ground after Stanton’s ball hit him. After everything that had happened with injuries last season for the Yankees, there was Tanaka, not just down, but looking as if he were out, before the Yanks had concluded one week of Summer Camp.

“I was in my office when it happened,” Cashman said. “Been spending a lot of time in my office. We’ve all been having long days and nights before we even start the short season. But needless to say, I got down there pretty quickly.”

Tanaka got up. Now baseball tries to get back up. Everybody involved with the game, and that includes the fans, doesn’t just want the short season to start. We all want the regular season to finish in September and the postseason to make it through October. There are no guarantees, of course. Again: We all see how quickly things can change on the ground, both literally with Tanaka, and figuratively. But everybody keeps moving toward July 23 -- first the Yankees against the defending World Series champion Nationals, then the Dodgers against the Giants.

“We have this chance,” Cashman said, “to be a positive distraction.”

Dodgers left-hander David Price has elected not to play this season. Braves outfielder Nick Markakis made the same decision, as has Rockies outfielder Ian Desmond and a few others. Angels outfielder Mike Trout -- the best player in the sport and one of the best of all time -- hasn’t made any secret of his own concerns about returning to a job he clearly loves, especially with his first child, a boy, scheduled to be born in August. And there have been positive tests for the virus across the sport already.

This is the baseball summer of 2020, still waiting to begin, when “intake test” has become part of the language of the game.

“It’s all part of trying to get our game up and running again,” Cashman said. “We’re all aware that we have a chance to be part of something.”

At one point, the second half of the baseball season would have been in full swing by July 23. Now the whole thing is just starting up. If Spring Training hadn’t been shut down on March 12 and the pandemic hadn’t postponed the start of the regular season, Stanton wouldn’t have been ready to go for the Yankees. Aaron Judge wouldn’t have been ready to go. Neither would James Paxton. But all of them are back on the field now. The Yankees, as a team, look as whole as they have in a long time. And the Yanks have Cole now. It is one of the reasons why they are as much a World Series favorite -- as much of a favorite as anybody can be in a “Fast and Furious” season like this -- as the Dodgers are.

“Opt in, all in,” Brian Cashman said again. “We just all have to maintain perspective. It starts with this: We get to go to work today. Not everybody can say that.”