The Boston Red Sox opened up their three-game set against the Toronto Blue Jays. But they won't be playing in Canada this time around.
Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, the Blue Jays have not been able to play in their home ballpark this year. They will play games through June 1 in Florida at TD Ballpark before making Sahlen Field in Buffalo home. It's unclear if they will return to Rogers Centre later this season.
There's been some changes made to TD Ballpark in order to make it feel more like a Major League Baseball stadium. For example, there are light fixtures that were brought in in order to meet the standards a big-league ballpark.
But at the end of the day, it's all about adjusting.
"Defensively, it's a little bit different," Cora told reporters Tuesday over Zoom. "The pop-ups and the lighting and all that stuff, you've got to adjust and we don't have time to adjust. Batting practice is in a half hour or an hour and the lights won't be on. That's my biggest worry, the defensive part of it. The offensive part of it, obviously, your eyes, when the sun goes down and the lights are on, that's going to be different. Besides that, the dimensions, it really doesn’t matter. We’ve been in places that they’re big and the ball flies, so I think defensively in the outfield, you have to make adjustments."
Cora knows though no matter where the Red Sox play, all games matter just the same.
"It's going to be a different environment," Cora said. "Obviously, guys are going to talk about how they see the ball, how they don't see the ball, the atmosphere. At the end, it's a big-league game, and big-league games, they matter."
The wind was whipping prior to first pitch and looked to be a steady factor throughout the first few innings of Tuesday's game.
