Blue Jays to play home games in Buffalo

TORONTO » The displaced Toronto Blue Jays will play in a minor league park in Buffalo, New York, this year after being turned down by the Canadian government and blocked to play in Pittsburgh by the state of Pennsylvania.

The Blue Jays will play “home games” at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, home of the club’s Triple-A affiliate Buffalo Bisons. General manager Ross Atkins had previously said that if team could not find a major league park, Buffalo would be the most likely site for home games.

The team sought a major league stadium after the Canadian government declined to allow them to play in Toronto but was unsuccessful. Pennsylvania health officials then rejected a deal to play in Pittsburgh because of rising COVID-19 cases there.

The team also held talks with the Baltimore Orioles about Camden Yards, but the Blue Jays didn’t want to wait to see if Maryland officials would say no with the season starting Friday.

“Baltimore never got to a situation to where we were denied,”

Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro said Friday. “At some point continuing to explore and look at an option like Baltimore was not going to be a risk we could take. That risk of being turned down certainly existed. And so we obviously had to make a decision knowing we had a very good alternative, albeit not a major league one, but one we felt could get close to a major league one.”

Toronto opens the season at Tampa Bay on Friday. The team said the first scheduled home series, against the Washington Nationals on July 29 and 30, will

take place on the road to accommodate infrastructure modifications at Sahlen Field to meet Major League Baseball standards and COVID-19 safety requirements.

The Blue Jays’ first game in Buffalo will be either July 31 against the Philadelphia Phillies or

Aug. 11 against the Miami Marlins.

The team had also considered playing home games at its training facility in Dunedin, Florida, but that is among the states that are virus hot spots.

Health officials in Canada and Pennsylvania, however, were worried about frequent travel throughout the U.S., one of the countries hit hardest by the pandemic.