West Sacramento, California. It is not perfect, but it is home.
As the Athletic-Doseball Vagabond franchise expected its next destination, they are committed to spending three seasons playing games at home in Sutter Health Park, an installation of 14,000 seats that share with the Sacrament.
Such is the difficult situation of a franchise that was in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City, Missouri, and then Oakland, with a new stadium of $ 1.75 billion planned to open in Las Vegas in 2028.
For A players, the only option is the acceptance of the new environment.
“The situation we have at this time is not the best,” said Luis Severino before the 3-1 defeat of the Mets against athletics. “We just have to adapt to what we have and try to do our best.”
The biggest adjustment for players is the space of the Club house and the location of these facilities. Unlike other stadiums that house MLB teams, the club houses are separated from the shelters and are located beyond the left field.
Much in the spirit of the land of the pole, the house of the Mets for two seasons after its start in 1962, the players enter and leave the field before and after the game walking through the garden.
Logistics is particularly difficult for banking players precisely to swings in the inner batting cage during the game. Instead of simply walking through a shelter tunnel up to a nearby cage, players now must navigate traffic, waiting even between tickets to venture beyond the fence of the left field, where the cages are located.
“Everything is still new, but the staff and everything they have done to the stadium, a lot of work has been done, making sure that it is as close as possible to the big leagues,” said the gardener of A, Seth Brown. “There will always be things that appear the first year of this place. But every time we have mentioned something, [the team] It has bone accommodation to fix it. “
Among the notices to address: insurance, the medical cart is executed correctly.
On Saturday, the members of the Grounds team had to expel that car from the field in the second entrance after it obviously ran out of gas when José Siri needed an elevator to the Club House.
Siri left the game after dirtying a ball from her pimp.
A new club house was built specifically for the AS, with the River Cats (the triple-a affiliate of the giants) also received an update in its facilities. The weight room and the video room used by the visiting team have received strong criticisms of the METS this weekend.
The space is particularly adjusted in the Visitors Club House, but perhaps not worse than Wrigley Field before this installation underwent an important renewal in the last decade.
“I really can’t complain,” said the reliever of the Mets, Ryne Stanek. “The building here is a bit labyrinth, but it has everything you need. I would say it is quite standard for a visiting side.”
Stanek said there was a small discussion among his teammates about playing in a lower league baseball stadium while the Mets prepared for this trip. The previous incursion of the METS in a minor leagues installation for a regular seasonal game occurred Duration Covid in 2020, when the Blue Jays were playing at home in Buffalo.
“It’s something where you knew [the A’s] Put a lot of money and tried to do the right things, “said Stanek.” So I don’t think it really cools us too much. You are just the son of expected that it was not the same, but sufficiently close to the other places where we play. “
After decades of round trip with the city trying to get a new stadium in Oakland, last year of the athletics he committed to Las Vegas and decided that spending three seasons in Sacramento until his stadium is ready was a better alternative than the silly Duck on the berry.
Oakland and Sacramento are 80 miles away, close enough so that athletics can maintain their existing local television contract.
Athletics have averaged 10,037 fans in their first seven games in Sutter Health Park, approximately 50 percent of what they drawn last year in Oakland.
But some would say that it was a good sign that Friday night’s game here, even with a solid presence of mets fans, attracted only 9,632.
Before the season, the manager Mark Kotsay and the A de A players asked to attract the city to start advertising the team.
The impulse included signing Severino (who launched last season for the METS) to a three -year contract worth $ 67 million. It was the largest free agent agreement in the history of the franchise.
“The support has been phenomenal,” Brown said. “Energy is there, so it’s fun.”