Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox is on Friday. Major League Baseball will be back at last. It just won’t look anything like what you’re used to.

My final column before Opening Day is usually a preview. I’d normally use this space to lay out the scenarios you should expect to see in the coming weeks and months. I’d tell you what to look for, and suggest a couple of unexpected story lines that could pop up along the way.

But – stop me if you’ve heard this before – these aren’t normal times. And nowhere will that be more evident than Fenway Park.

So I’ll stick to my practice of telling you what you should expect to see at the ballpark. You’ll see rows and rows of empty seats as the game rolls along. But not all seats will be empty. Since only a limited number of players can gather in the dugout and bullpen there will be new structures standing above what would normally be the best seats in the house.

Wide shots of Fenway will unveil a sort of shanty town with auxiliary dugouts and bullpens covering players who will sit in seats formerly filled by fans.

You’ll see umpires with hand sanitizer at the ready, coaches wearing masks, and players choosing to tap toes instead of high-fiving after home runs.

You might even see yourself, if you take part in the Red Sox Foundation’s plan to sell cardboard cutouts of fans up above the Green Monster.

As you watch the broadcast on NESN (the only way you’ll get to see any of this) you’ll see shots of Dave O’Brien, Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley miles from Fenway as they call the game while watching it on television.

And you’ll hear things you’ve never heard at a major league game before. You’ll hear players yelling out to each other. You’ll hear the crack of the bat at a much higher volume as it echoes in an empty stadium. You’ll hear home runs bouncing off empty bleacher seats.

Through all of this you’ll get to see baseball. Let’s face it, that seemed highly unlikely as recently as six weeks ago. Teams have gathered, weathered the storm of early test results, and are essentially ready to go.

While a handful of players have tested positive, and a handful more have opted not to play, the vast majority of players are ready to go. After several weeks of “summer camp” workouts all of this almost seems normal, another reminder that the human mind will get used to just about anything with enough repetition.

Will the Red Sox be any good? Who knows? The starting rotation is incredibly thin, even with Eduardo Rodriguez back in camp after a positive test. He won’t be ready for the start of the season. Nathan Eovaldi will get the ball for the opener Friday. Veteran Martin Pérez has struggled in camp but will need to give them some length when he starts. Zack Godley, released by the Tigers, was signed to help bolster the staff.

Manager Ron Roenicke will have to be creative with his bullpen, using a reliever as an “opener” when he doesn’t have a starting pitcher available. That will probably happen 10-12 times over the course of the season.

The offense should be fine, even without Mookie Betts. You may recall the team traded him away just before spring training. That seems like a lifetime ago now.

Boston will be hard-pressed to make it to the postseason with the starting rotation in place. But a hot start could build confidence in the lineup and put them in a position to surprise people. Any team can have a hot week or two. That, along with five or six weeks of .500 baseball, could be enough.

All of this is assuming baseball makes it through the entire season. We have no idea if that will happen. So much is still up in the air. The Toronto Blue Jays, in town for exhibition games Tuesday and Wednesday at Fenway, aren’t even sure where they will play their home games.

So enjoy the games when they are played. If we should’ve learned anything over the last four months, it’s not to take things like this for granted.

Tom Caron is a studio host for Red Sox broadcasts on NESN. His column runs on Tuesdays in the Portland Press Herald.

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