Kopech not at White Sox camp due to personal reasons
With the White Sox's 44-man roster split up into morning and afternoon work groups for summer training camp, it's going to be nearly impossible to tell which players are present and which are absent.
During Friday's early workout at Guaranteed Rate Field, Sox general manager Rick Hahn did announce starting pitcher Michael Kopech was missing due to personal reasons.
Hahn didn't get into any specifics but he has been in touch with Kopech, as has manager Rick Renteria.
"It's obviously never ideal when any individual is dealing with off-field matters," Hahn said. "It's easy, I suppose at times, to lose sight of the fact that you're dealing with human beings here. People have lives, people have families. People have all the same assortment of items to attend to that each and every other individual has."
Kopech, a highly-touted prospect acquired from the Red Sox in the Chris Sale trade, debuted with the White Sox late in the 2018 season and was 1-1 with a 5.02 ERA over 4 starts before injuring his elbow.
The 24-year-old righty sat out all of last year recovering from Tommy John surgery.
There is no timeline for Kopech's return.
"It's not ideal, but fundamentally, we're looking to put all our players in the best position they can be to perform and maximize their abilities on the field," Hahn said. "If there's anything standing in the way of that, we're going to provide them with whatever support and resources they need to help address those matters.
"We fully support Michael and are going to provide him with whatever time and resources he needs and look forward to seeing him in the future."
Stay safe:
With social distancing an obvious goal for keeping players safe and healthy, the White Sox have spread out in the home, visiting and auxiliary clubhouses at Guaranteed Rate Field.
They are provided with box lunches, but that is the extent of the meals being served.
The Sox are also working out in two groups and familiar actions like high-fiving and spitting are out.
Getting baseball back is going to be a process that wisely leans heavily on caution. The White Sox are off to a good start.
"I just want the players to get a feel for how we want them to combine and manage all the aspects of the limitations that are placed upon us in terms of coming in contact with each other and what have you," manager Rick Renteria said. "Try to emphasize a lot of those things right now as we go through those first few days, to try to mitigate any potential contamination or infection, do those things that we have to employ.
"We're just using one field, obviously, but we'll have two dugouts and we'll have the stands for guys to be sitting in and we'll kind of continue to try to work it out, just like most clubs are doing. I don't think it's going to be any different. I'm trying to do it so we have a minimal amount of hiccups and that it looks like it flows. I want these guys to be able to take advantage of the opportunity they get to be on the field."