It was just Wednesday morning that head groundskeeper Matt Balough noticed his crew would have no way to get to the field between innings once games begin at Petco Park.
The usual route takes them from a staging area, through a corridor that passes the umpires’ locker room and emerges past the visitors’ dugout.
Under protocols set forth in Major League Baseball’s operations manual for this 2020 season that has been delayed and shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, however, members of the grounds crew can’t enter areas restricted for use by players and umpires.
“Just when you think you have something solved, something will come up that you may not have thought of,” said Mark Guglielmo, Padres senior vice president, ballpark operations.