Birmingham Barons (CHW) @ Knoxville Smokies (CHC)
May 9, 2026
S: Vince Reilly
HR: Ariel Armas (KNX), Owen Ayers (KNX)
Attendance: 5,663
Time of Game: 2 hours, 26 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Knoxville, TN
Opened: 2025
Capacity: 7,448
Level: Double A
League: Southern
Time of Game: 2 hours, 26 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Knoxville, TN
Opened: 2025
Capacity: 7,448
Level: Double A
League: Southern
The main theme of my 2026 minor league ballpark tour is a trip around the Southern League. I intend to see games in all eight Southern League ballparks this summer, with all but one of them on the docket for my June trip down south. The one exception is Knoxville, where I had intended to stop on my way back from Nashville in April. Actually, I did spend a night in Knoxville on that trip, but did not go to a game. So I made a return trip in May. The Smokies franchise returned to the city of Knoxville in 2025 after calling Kodak, TN, about 20 miles to the east, their home for a couple decades. They returned to the city in a brand new ballpark located just a few blocks northeast of the main downtown area, in a neighborhood that is being revitalized with the ballpark as the central figure of that project.
Covenant Health Park is easily one of the nicest minor league parks I've visited to date, particularly at the AA level. The interior of the park is modern in every way. However, it does seem to pay a little bit of homage to the Smokies parent club of the Cubs by providing great views of the game from points outside the stadium like the rooftops across the street from Wrigley Field. Here, there is a brand new condo building on the exterior of the park on the first base side where residents could have as good of a view of the game as most of the people inside the park. Except it appears very few of the units on the ballpark side have been sold so far because there were no lights on in any of them from what I could tell. There were a number of people watching from a lower terrace of that building though. Meanwhile, beyond the premises on the left field side are apartments that also provide balcony views of the action for its residents. Inside the park, there is a massive concourse above the main seating areas that has as impressive of a selection of concessions as I've seen in a minor league park. There is a walkway encircling the entire field. Uniquely, in center field, that walkway takes you over a bridge with a creek running below. I would imagine that creek has more than a few baseballs at the bottom of it because it is definitely reachable for left-handed pull hitters. There are picnic and party areas down each baseline and a large bar in right field with a water tower structure next to it that is a nod to the neighborhood's industrial past. Near that bar in right-centerfield is a massive video board, uniquely shaped like the state of Tennessee. A vast majority of the seats are on the playing field level in foul territory. Other than those hanging out at the bar in right or taking a walk around the outfield concourse, there are no actual seating areas in the outfield from which to watch the game. There is a second level that is almost exclusively luxury seating. I was really impressed with this park. It has me excited to see a couple other brand new AA ballparks that I plan to visit later this summer (Chattanooga, Richmond) to see if they are all this nice. On top of that, this was also an extremely nice night for baseball with a huge crowd on hand to watch Chicago's two AA affiliates square off on a Saturday night.
This was my first of a scheduled three looks at Birmingham this year. The two time defending Southern League champs are probably a longshot to make it three in a row because most of the Sox prospect talent is consolidated in High A and AAA right now. The Barons did get a few callups from Winston-Salem shortly after this game though. It was a very rough night at the plate for them in this one. Samuel Zavala started the game with an infield single that the second baseman wasn't able to corral. That would be the Barons only hit of the night. Smokies starter Tyler Schlaffer, who had been having a rough season up to this point, was dominant on this night. He pitched five scoreless innings allowing only that one infield hit, plus two walks, while striking out seven. He actually faced the minimum in those five innings because the hit and one of the walks were erased on caught stealings, while the other walk was followed by a double play. Barons starting pitcher Connor McCullough had a decent outing as well. But he needed to be nearly perfect and was not that. In the bottom of the second, Alex Ramirez lined a double over the centerfielder's head for the first of three hits for him. He came up a home run shy of the cycle. That was immediately followed by Ariel Armas hitting a bomb into the Smokies bullpen in deep left-center to give Knoxville a 2-0 lead. That was Armas' first home run of the season. Neither team would score again until the sixth inning when both starters had been pulled. Jackson Kirkpatrick took the mound in the sixth for the Smokies. After retiring the first batter he faced, he then walked three straight Barons to load the bases. A RBI groundout by Jacob Burke put the Barons on the board. Then Alec Makarewicz hit a slow chopper to third that Devin Ortiz made a wild throw to first allowing two runs to score. The Barons scored three in the inning without the benefit of a hit to take a 3-2 lead. The lead did not last long. Leading off the bottom half, catcher Owen Ayers lined a pitch just over the wall in right field to tie the game. It capped off a big night for Ayers on both sides of the ball as he also threw out a pair of potential base stealers. Following a Barons pitching change, Ramirez hit what appeared to be a routine fly ball to deep right that right fielder Drake Logan completely lost, allowing the ball to drop over his head and Ramirez to reach third safely for a generous triple. It seemed too dark at the time to be a twilight vision issue, so I'm not exactly sure what happened. Ramirez would later come in to score on a sacrifice fly by Edgar Alvarez who lined out to center for the second out of the inning, where centerfielder Burke started jogging in thinking the inning was over. Probably wouldn't have been able to throw out Ramirez anyway, but not a good look in that inning for the Birmingham outfield. That gave Knoxville a 4-3 lead heading into the late innings. The Barons didn't mount much of a charge in those final three frames. Smokies relievers struck out seven of the final nine batters they faced, with five of them coming on called strike threes. Birmingham seemed frustrated by the home plate ump, but at some point you need to swing the bat if he's going to keep calling strikes. In addition to throwing a one-hitter, Knoxville pitchers also struck out 14. Pretty rough night at the plate for the Barons as they dropped this game by a final score of 4-3. Amusingly, the win was credited to Kirkpatrick, who was by far the Smokies least effective pitcher.
While I was disappointed with the result of the game, it was a very enjoyable evening in Knoxville. I now look forward to seeing what the rest of the Southern League ballparks look like, because this one will be tough to beat. After one evening in Tennessee, it was back to Virginia for a Sunday afternoon game in Salem the following day.
Next ballpark: Carilion Clinic Field in Salem, VA
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