Toronto Wins First Game at New Home Field in Buffalo

The Toronto Blue Jays now have an official home field. It’s not Toronto, of course, after the city said they couldn’t have teams in and out, but it’s a home field nonetheless and it’s less than 100 miles away in Buffalo.

On Tuesday, they played their first game at their new spot, the 17,000-seat Sahlen Field, and escaped with an extra-innings victory over Miami.

Travis Shaw broke a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the 10th win an RBI single, bringing the Jays record to 6-8 on the year. Before Tuesday, the Jays had spent the entire season on the road, including a pair of “home games” at Nationals Park.

“We’re still staying in a hotel, but it almost felt like the first game of the year. To go out and say, `All right, this is our spot,’ I think we did well,” Bo Bichette said after the game, via ESPN.

Bichette had the big bop for Toronto, smacking a three-run jack in the sixth inning. Shaw finished with two hits and leadoff batter Cavan Biggio went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Combined, Biggio, Bichette, and Shaw — their 1-3 hitters — went 5-for-13 while the rest of the team went 2-for-20.

The new field received some renovations in the last few weeks to bring things up to snuff. Notably, the outfield wall, which has been green forever, is blue and has all the same advertisements as Toronto’s field, the Rogers Centre. They also made some changes to the living quarters.

Extensive renovations included a new infield, the home clubhouse being placed in the area where batting cages once existed, the visiting clubhouse being housed in a large temporary tent behind right-center field, and the Blue Jays’ weight room and practice batting cages taking up space in what is normally a public concourse. The work enabled the Blue Jays to occupy their familiar third base dugout, as in Toronto.

(via ESPN)

Buffalo, which last hosted a major league game in 1915, tried to get an expansion team in the early 90s, according to ESPN, but lost out to Colorado and Miami (then the Florida Marlins).

Toronto’s lineup, which features an impressive trio of young stars that also have MLB All-Stars as fathers — Bichette, Biggio and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — has struggled out of the gate and ranks dead-last in runs per game. They have one more game against Miami in Buffalo before welcoming the Rays into town for three games.