The Padres were a couple days away from more roster cuts and from their coaching and personnel staff diving into parsing position battles.
That’s when COVID-19 made those decisions moot and diminished the importance of the previous four weeks’ work.
Now 3½ months later it is three weeks and go, a brief warm-up for a 60-game sprint to what the Padres hope will be their first playoff appearance since 2006.
“(It’s a) sense of urgency from pitch one of the season,” first baseman Eric Hosmer said. “There’s no time to settle in.