CHICAGO -- Barring some type of late-March weather postponement, Lucas Giolito would have been making his second start of the 2020 season either Tuesday night or Wednesday afternoon in Cleveland following his first career Opening Day start last Thursday at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Instead, the White Sox All-Star right-hander finds himself in self-quarantine with his wife, Ariana, after driving to their California home this past weekend from the organization’s Camelback Ranch facility in Glendale, Ariz. They are binge-watching "Love is Blind" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," but Giolito is also dealing with the realities of balancing baseball work against life during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s weird. It almost feels like some sort of weird purgatory,” Giolito said during a conference call with media members Tuesday evening. “We were in Spring Training mode. Everybody [on the White Sox] is on the same page. We were having a great camp, guys were coming together, and we were making great progress as a club, I think. We were getting prepared for a really great season, and just out of nowhere, not very much warning, it was like, ‘All right, we have to shut it down and everyone is on hold until further notice.’

“So it’s a weird vibe for guys like me, pretty much every guy around the league will probably tell you the same thing. It sucks. We wish we were out there playing. At the same time, we are in the middle of a crisis and we can’t force the issue. We have to let everything run its course and hopefully we can get this going as soon as possible.”

Giolito traveled across state lines in going home, stopping at gas stations along the way, so the self-quarantine is him trying to be as cautious as possible. He doesn’t want to be responsible for infecting anyone else or getting infected.

Giolito is cooking at home and using a meal-delivery plan, while also working out with a home gym in his garage. Giolito has a net in his backyard to monitor his throwing, after recording only one Cactus League inning due to a mild chest strain. That has been completely healed since early in camp, and now Giolito is maintaining where he needs to be when baseball returns.

There was no worry on Giolito’s part working out around his teammates at Camelback Ranch because everyone was being safe. But as the situation continued to develop, Giolito and his wife, who is a veterinary student in the middle of her infectious disease unit, decided to head home and “wait things out.”

"I think as starting pitchers -- I'm speaking for myself and probably a bunch of the other guys on the team -- we're doing everything we can to maintain kind of where we were," Giolito said, "getting our up-and-downs and our pitch counts and all that.

“Despite limited resources, we're able to pick up a ball and throw it and change intensities and measure it out. When it does come time for us to play again, we're going to be able to communicate. We've already been communicating pretty much on a weekly basis with our coaching staff and training staff and everything like that. We’ll just kind of pick it up and kind of gauge where guys are at and make decisions from there.”

As America’s pastime, baseball brings people together, as Giolito pointed out, and fans obviously miss that excitement and entertainment. But Giolito also recognizes more important things are going on.

“There’s unfortunately people dying from this,” Giolito said. “And you know, it seems like it continues to spread more and more.

“The whole baseball thing does have to take a backseat, and as a player, I’m doing everything I can within reason to maintain staying in shape and where I need to be when it comes time for us to start again. But the main importance is adhering to what we should be doing as a country and as united people in trying to stop the spread of this.”