Victory Field - Indianapolis Indians

Iowa Cubs (CHC) @ Indianapolis Indians (PIT)

September 11, 2025

Cubs 6, Indians 2

W: Michael Soroka
L: Jack Little

S: Gavin Hollowell

HR: Hayden Cantrelle (IOW), Jack Suwinski (IND)

Attendance: 8,205
Time of Game: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Indianapolis, IN
Opened: 1996
Capacity: 12,230
Level: Triple A
League: International

The last minor league baseball game for me in 2025 took me back to Indiana for a game in downtown Indianapolis.  While it would have made sense to include Indianapolis on my June tour of the Midwest, I opted to skip it because the Indians were only home the second week of that trip which would have forced me to do some backtracking.  So instead, I saved it for my next trip back to Indiana in September on my way to South Bend for a Notre Dame football game.  This was not my first game at Victory Field.  I saw the Indians host the Charlotte Knights in a game back in 2016.  I think that may have been the first time I ever saw a game in a AAA ballpark, so I didn't have much of a frame of reference for judging the park at that time.  After this stop, I actually thought the park was quite a bit nicer than I had remembered.  But that could just be because I didn't remember much from that first visit.

Victory Field is located in the heart of downtown Indianapolis.  With the exception of Charlotte, I think it might have the best city skyline view of any minor league park I've seen.  The most distinguishing aspect of that is the JW Marriot hotel rising above the stadium beyond left field.  The primary entrance to the park is in center field which leads to a concourse that circles the entire stadium and provides views of the field throughout.  The outfield features exclusively lawn seating, ranging from pole to pole.  There are picnic and patio areas down each line.  There is an extensive second deck of seating in foul territory that features regular reserved seating, plus a club seating area behind the plate and plenty of suites as well.  The listed stadium capacity of 12,230 doesn't include all of the extra people they can accommodate in the outfield lawn areas, so this is a quite large stadium by minor league standards.  For a park that was built before the turn of the century, Victory Field has aged quite nicely.  And fans seem to enjoy visiting it as well.  The crowd for this Thursday night game in September was over 8,000.  I think there were more butts in seats (or on grass) for this game than the MLB game in Washington, D.C. that I attended a week earlier.  Of course, they weren't all rooting for the Indians as there is no shortage of Cubs fans in the Indianapolis area either.  This wound up being a perfect night for baseball.

With this game taking place just about a week before the end of the minor league season, both teams seemed to have pretty strict innings limitations placed on their pitchers.  Southpaw Jordan Wicks, who has been up and down between Iowa and Chicago the past three years, got the start for the Cubs.  He was opposed by another lefty Hunter Barco who made his MLB debut with the Pirates not long after this game.  Barco, along with Bubba Chandler who I saw pitch for Indianapolis in June, hope to join Paul Skenes in giving the Pirates an exciting young rotation.  Barco ran into trouble in the second inning, loading the bases with nobody out, but managed to escape the inning without allowing a run.  For the game, he gave up a pair of hits with no runs and three strikeouts in his three innings of work.  Wicks also pitched three innings, but did give up a lone run in his final inning.  That run scored on a flared ground rule double down the right field line by veteran Nick Solak.  Iowa got on the board for the first time in the fifth inning when the top three hitters in their lineup strung consecutive hits together.  James Triantos, who went to high school just down the road from me in Vienna, VA, singled up the middle.  Then Cubs top prospect Owen Caissie hit one off the top of the wall in right field for a RBI double.  It was the first of two doubles for Caissie in this game.  He was promoted to Chicago for his second MLB stint right after this game.  Jonathon Long followed Caissie with another double to right to give Iowa a 2-1 lead.  Rehabbing pitcher Michael Soroka, who got hurt in his first outing with the Cubs after being traded from the Nationals, pitched 2 1/3 innings of relief for Iowa.  He was pretty dominant, but did allow a game tying home run to fellow rehabbing big league veteran Jack Suwinski on the first pitch of the bottom of the sixth.  While this was technically a rehab stint for Suwinski, he actually played more games for Indianapolis than Pittsburgh this season.  The Cubs retook the lead in the top of the seventh on a two out RBI single by catcher Carlos Perez, his third hit of the game.  They added two more runs in the eighth on a two run homer by Hayden Cantrelle.  One more run in the ninth inning made it a 6-2 final score in favor of Iowa.  Indianapolis was perhaps a tad fortunate this scoreline wasn't even uglier.  The Cubs outhit them 16 to 4 and left 13 runners on base.

So that brought an end to my second season of touring minor league baseball.  Just like 2024, in 2025 I made it to games in 20 different ballparks, bringing my total to 40 so far.  I do plan to keep it going in 2026, with the Southern League and other affiliated clubs in that league's footprint being my primary target.  I also intend to finish up the rest of the Eastern and South Atlantic League stadiums that I have not yet visited.  Until then, I bid adieu.

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Next ballpark: TBD 2026