The Blue Jays want to play at a Major League facility, splitting time at PNC Park and Camden Yards might be the thing to do
By Cam Lewis
3 years agoThe Canadian government denied the Blue Jays’ request to play home games at Rogers Centre in Toronto this summer, stating that coming in and out of the border so many times posed a threat to the health and safety of Canadians.
You certainly can’t fault Canada for making this decision, but it does leave the Blue Jays in an awkward spot. Now they’re essentially a post-grad millennial backpacking around the United States on a summer trip without a permanent place to crash.
It seemed that the organization’s newly-renovated spring training complex in Dunedin would be the place to go, but Florida is such a COVID-19 hotbed that going there is a legitimate safety concern for the team. The next option, naturally, would be Buffalo, home of the Triple-A Bisons, which is much safer location in terms of the virus. But Sahlen Field isn’t up to Major League standards, both in terms of the lighting for television and in terms of the amenities (batting cages, gym, locker room, and so on) that players are used to.
The Jays, according to Ross Atkins, are focused on finding a Major League facility to play at this summer. So far, the Pittsburgh Pirates have rolled out a welcome mat for the Jays to share PNC Park, while the team has also reached out to the Orioles about the possibility of playing at Camden Yards.
The Jays are now en route to Boston for a two-game exhibition series before they’ll kick off the regular season in Washington on Friday. After that? It’s anybody’s guess. It’s going to be a summer of backpacking for the Blue Jays.
“Right now, in our locker room, we basically have a road bag and a home bag,” Joe Panik said. “I don’t know where the home bag is going, but basically we have two bags packed. For my personal stuff, I just condensed everything down … Two months in the hotel, whatever it’s going to be, just treat it as a two-month exploration on the road somewhere.”
Here’s how it could work if the Blue Jays spent the 2020 season couch surfing at different Major League venues…
- The Jays’ “home opener” is scheduled for July 29 against the Nationals. The Pirates are scheduled to be at home playing the Brewers at that time, so the Jays could stay in Washington and serve as the home team at Nationals Park.
- Next up, the Jays are supposed to host the Phillies. The Pirates hit the road on July 31 to head to Chicago, so we’re all good for that three-game series to be held at PNC Park.
- After that, the Jays hit the road for six games in Atlanta and Boston, so their next home dates are Aug. 11 to 16 against the Marlins and Rays. The Pirates are in St. Louis and Cincinnati, so that works fine too.
- The Jays will head to Baltimore and Tampa after that before returning “home” from Aug. 25 to 31 to play the Red Sox and Rays. Again, the Pirates are on the road at this time, so these six games are good to be played at PNC Park.
- We start to run into some issues in September. Between Sept. 7 and 13, the Jays are scheduled to host the Yankees and Mets. The Pirates are also at home on Sept. 8 and 9, so the Jays will have to find somewhere else to play those games. The final set of overlapping games comes from Sept. 21 to 24, again as the Jays are scheduled to host the Yankees. They could play those overlapping games as the “home” team at Yankee stadium and then return to Pittsburgh when the Pirates leave to play the other games that aren’t overlapping.
- Giving the Yankees a bunch of extra home games obviously wouldn’t be ideal. Another solution would be to share Camden Yards in Baltimore with the Orioles for the month of September. While the Jays and Pirates don’t have conflicting home dates in August, they overlap six times in September. The Orioles, on the other hand, don’t have a single conflicting home date with the Jays in September.
- So, all told, the Jays could play their August “home” schedule in Pittsburgh, and then move over to Baltimore for their September “home” schedule.
Of course, the scheduling is just one part of the entire equation and it’s the easiest part to figure out. The challenge here is the actual logistics of sharing a facility with another Major League team. It’s already going to be difficult for teams to operate in gyms and locker rooms with strong COVID-19 protocols in place, adding another team to the mix just makes it a nightmare.
Buffalo still remains an option if the Jays can’t reach an agreement with either the Pirates or the Orioles. It might not be ideals, but, well, nothing about this entire situation is ideal.
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