Kevin's Baseball Stadium Blog: Sahlen Field

Worcester Red Sox (BOS) @ Buffalo Bisons (TOR)

June 11, 2024

Bisons 3, Red Sox 2

W: Brandon Eisert
L: Lucas Luetge

Attendance: 5,771
Time of Game: 2 hours, 33 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Buffalo, NY
Opened: 1988
Capacity: 16,600
Level: Triple A
League: International

There are three International League teams located in very close proximity to one another in Western/Central New York (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse). The way the minor league schedule has been configured in recent years, it is fairly uncommon for three geographically close teams in the same league to all be home in the same week. I planned this whole trip around this particular week when all three of the New York AAA teams happened to be playing at home. I went to a Tuesday night game in Buffalo following a morning and early afternoon visit to nearby Niagara Falls, where I had last been over 20 years ago. Where I had never been before was downtown Buffalo, which is where Sahlen Field is located.

Sahlen Field is probably the most major league looking minor league park I have ever visited. That makes sense since it was originally built in the late '80s in hopes of attracting a MLB expansion team. And then the park received a big league makeover a few years ago in advance of becoming the Blue Jays temporary home for the pandemic shortened 2020 season and then again for a couple months in '21 before Canada loosened its Covid related border crossing restrictions. The downtown location provides plenty of options for those trying to make a full day out of their trip to a Bisons game, although I didn't exactly do that. As for the stadium, the lower level seating bowl in foul territory is expansive and probably contains as many seats as most major league parks do on that level. There is a decent sized second deck as well. What makes it clearly a minor league park, however, is the lack of outfield seating besides a party area in right field. I don't love that the concourse is completely under the seats. While the entire stadium design was understandable in hopes of drawing a MLB team, I really think it is *too* big for the minor leagues. On this Tuesday night, the attendance was a little under 6K, which is pretty good for a cool Tuesday evening in the minors. But it felt like a smaller crowd than that with so many lower level empty seats. It was quite different than the intimate atmosphere I've experience at other parks this year.

Before I get to the details of the game, I have a couple other items of note. First, I found it interesting that they performed both the Canadian and American national anthems before the game, despite these being two American based teams. I'm not sure if this is because of Buffalo being right across the bridge from Canada, or if this is something all of Toronto's affiliates do. I guess I will have an answer to that after I visit New Hampshire later this month. Next, this was the first game I've attended where the fully automated balls-and-strikes system was in use. Prior to a couple weeks ago, both AAA leagues were using an automated system by which the home plate ump would receive a signal before making the ball/strike call. This system was in use for weekday games only. Then on weekends, they went to a challenge system where the batter or catcher could challenge a call made by the ump and a review of the pitch would immediately display on the scoreboard. Now, they have switched to the challenge system for all AAA games, which would seem to indicate this is the system more likely to come to MLB in the near future. As for the fully automated system in use for this game, if I wasn't previously aware of its use, I'm not sure I would have been able to tell the difference from any other game. The ump received signals quickly enough that there really wasn't a noticeable delay with his calls. I did see at least one hitter shake his head when called out on a pitch he felt was not a strike. Obviously, it wouldn't have made sense to argue the point with the ump though.

On to the game. Blue Jays' rookie pitcher Yariel Rodriguez made a rehab start for Buffalo. Safe to say it went pretty well. He only went four innings, but 10 of the 12 outs he recorded were strikeouts. He gave up just three singles and no runs. Worcester starter Grant Gambrell was rather effective too, but in a far less dominant fashion. He went five innings allowing just two singles and one run, but walked three with just one strikeout. The Bisons carried a 1-0 lead into the sixth before the Red Sox finally got something going. With a runner on first, former Notre Dame slugger Niko Kavadas singled to right. Right fielder Steward Berroa made a poor throw to third, which got away to allow a run to score. Worcester DH Mickey Gasper followed with a booming double off the wall to put the Red Sox up 2-1. It was the second of three hits, two doubles, for Gasper on the night. The Bisons offense was pretty stagnant all night, only recording four hits in total. But they made each of them count as they scored in every inning in which they had a hit. They tied the game in the eighth on an Orelvis Martinez single scoring Addison Barger, both of whom are among the Blue Jays top prospects and have spent time with the big league club this year. In fact, Martinez made his MLB debut not long after this game. He appeared in one game with the Blue Jays... and then received an 80 game PED suspension which he is currently serving. Anyway, the game remained tied into the bottom of the 9th. The Bisons had runners on first and second with two outs and Barger at the plate. He hit a slow chopper up the middle that second baseman, former Olympic speedskater Eddy Alvarez got to, but two hopped a throw to first that Kavadas was unable to grab. It bounced far enough away that the runner on second, Cam Eden, came all the way around to score on what was ruled an infield single. It started a trend of walk-off winners I would witness on this trip. 3-2 Buffalo was the final.

That was a fun ending to a busy day. But there was not much time to rest afterwards because an afternoon game in Rochester was on deck the next day.

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