Chaim Bloom on the Marlins outbreak, and how the Red Sox plan to make themselves contenders

Bloom discussed the recent COVID-19 outbreak across MLB, as well the Red Sox' performance, on WEEI's "The Greg Hill Show" on Thursday.

Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom appeared on WEEI's "The Greg Hill Show" on Thursday. AP Photo/Matt York

By Deyscha Smith

July 31, 2020

3 minutes to read

As concerns loom over Major League Baseball after 17 players on the the Miami Marlins and two staff members on the Philadelphia Phillies recently tested positive for COVID-19, MLB has postponed games for both teams as well as the Nationals, Blue Jays, Brewers, and Cardinals.

The Red Sox, who are on road to take on the Mets and Yankees in New York, followed by a trip to Florida for games against the Rays, have had to put forth precautions and guidelines to ensure safety.

Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom feels that now, more than ever, this season is about looking out for each other and ensuring safety. He discussed the team’s travel preparations on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Thursday.

“I think everybody understands that we had a system set up here that while you can’t ever make the risk zero, you’re doing every thing reasonable to minimize that risk,” Bloom said. “What I think this season is, in a lot of respects is really a teammate contest. You’re not just doing this for yourself, you’re doing it for everybody else. That’s basically how it is with anything that is contagious, you’re taking the precautions for your teammates as well as everybody needs to rely on each other.”

The outbreak, Bloom said, serves as an “important lesson” in abiding by protocols and social distancing.

“We know all of these guys are getting tested every other day — and that’s great and that is a really, really fortunate thing that we know is a luxury that not a lot of folks in our society have. But as far as what we’re doing, you can’t just rely on the testing. The reason we have these protocols in place, the reason we are distancing, the reason we are cleaning so thoroughly, the reason we’re asking guys to wear masks and not be near each other when they don’t have to, is in order to create additional safeguards so that if you do have a case, you prevent it from becoming an outbreak.

“So it was a really good lesson on the importance of that and just emphasizing we know there’s a lot of force of habit that drives everybody’s behavior day to day, we know guys like to be around their teammates. We all do — we’re human beings, that’s how we are, we’re social beings. But we have to take these precautions to make sure we give ourselves the best chance of avoiding an outbreak.”

Given that the MLB trade deadline is nearly a month away, and that the Red Sox’ pitching has struggled so far, Bloom was also asked about how he plans to make the team a contender.

“I think, obviously, there’s so many things we’re trying to wrap our minds around with the 60-game season…Every game you play ticks off a lot more of the season than you’re used to it doing,” he explained. “We also have an expanded playoff field to factor in, which I think just adds variance and gives everybody a much better chance. I think that there’s a lot of different things to consider.

“Look, if we have something that’s an opportunity to set us up well, that’s consistent with the way we’ve approached this really since the fall. We want to win in 2020. We cannot discard the future, and if something’s going to help us in ’21 or ’22 or ’23 or ’24, it’d be irresponsible of us not to consider something like that. But I don’t think that we’re approaching this right now with a singular mindset one way or the other. We want to compete right now, and we need to make sure we’re looking at opportunities in the big picture, as well.”

He then acknowledged how “tough” the American League East is, and the team’s slow start to the season so far. Good teams, he said, prevail through a competitive schedule by adopting a competitive mindset.

“We know that the AL East is always tough,” he added. “It’s a tough schedule and a lot of this tough stretch was really loaded up for us right in front with these teams, so there’s no question that it’s a gantlet, it’s a run coming out of the gate. I think good teams, they obviously know when the tough points in their schedule are, but they always take a mindset into every game, ‘We have a game in front of us tonight and we need to do what we can to win that.’

“Obviously we need to do that the next couple of weeks, there’s no question if we want to get where we’re trying to get we’re going to need to be able to go toe-to-toe with those very, very good teams and we’re going to need to figure out a way to beat them.”