Rochester Red Wings’ home opener pushed back to May 18

The Wings’ first game will be on May 4 against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.

In the 2021 season, the Wings will only face other Triple A East Northeast Division teams: Buffalo Bisons, Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Scranton/WB RailRiders, Syracuse Mets and Worcester Red Sox.

Each home and road series will feature six games against the same opponent, with Mondays off.

There will be no Triple A All-Star Game and the season will end on Sept. 19.

The team says ticketing information and COVID-19 fan safety protocols at Frontier Field will be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets are not on sale at this point.

The delay brings the Triple A schedule closer in line to the start date for the lower levels of the Minor League and allows for the possibility of some players to be vaccinated prior to traveling regularly for the season.

General Manager Dan Mason said that he’s actually in favor of the delayed start.

“The hope is that the more and more people get vaccinated and as time goes on and the cases hopefully continue to go down that our capacity is going to increase, which will be great news for our fans and great news for us too,” Mason said.

When the wings line up for their first home game of the season it will mark 624 days in between games at Frontier Field for the wings.

During those now-delayed four weeks, the players who would have been in Triple A will be at alternate sites similar to last season.

Mason says those four weeks will give everybody an extra chance to ease into the season and the return of baseball.

“By starting the season in alternate sites it is easier to manage those health and safety protocols for sure,” Mason said. “Easier to call guys up who have been in that bubble so to speak, guys that go from Triple-A to the big leagues, it’s closer proximity to the major league ballparks.”