Quiet Memorial Day shows flaw in IL calendar format

The new minors schedule instituted by Major League Baseball in 2021 is good for player well-being because of how it reduces travel, but not so good for fans and teams.

In a 20-team International League, there was only one game on Monday: Omaha at Indianapolis. Those teams will take Tuesday off as Indy has taken the necessary steps to ask MLB to allow it to play on Monday. There are limits to the number of changes you can request and most teams save their requests in hopes of getting what they want around July 3-4.

Still, it seems absurd that no one plays on Memorial Day when you can have all kinds of games and good crowds during school breaks in the north or an early summer day in the south. On Labor Day, four teams will host (Toledo, Rochester, St. Paul and Columbus).

Under the current schedule, everyone has Monday off each week and each series is six games, except for the three players who open the season in March and come off the All-Star break in July. The six games scheduled during the week of July 4 are split between the two sites.

It’s great for the players. All those short two- or three-game series that required quick jaunts to places like Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley are a thing of the past, and teams can now huddle in one place for a week.

However, fans don’t really like it because it can get boring. I’ve talked to several Bisons fans who go to a game on a Tuesday or Wednesday and don’t want to see the same team if they go back Saturday or Sunday. And no matter how accurate they are on point, that doesn’t change. It’s too convenient for MLB and teams to do it any other way.

By the way, the Bisons wouldn’t have hosted Memorial Day this year anyway, with their next series opening Tuesday at Syracuse. They begin their only six-game back-to-back on the road this season, facing the Mets and Lehigh Valley, and their next home game isn’t until June 11 against Worcester.

Longtime Star Tribune reporter LaVelle E. Neal III tweeted Sunday that “the Twins were horrified” when Royce Lewis stole second base in his first rehab game for St. Paul Saturday night at Sahlen Field.

Lewis, who has been out with a quad injury since Opening Day, was 3-for-9 in his two games against the Bisons. He hit .309 for the Twins last year with 15 homers and 52 RBIs.

Neal noted that Lewis “doesn’t have a green light to steal, more like a bright red light” and the Twins didn’t even want him to initially miss balls at 100 percent.

While the Bisons and St. Paul combined for just four runs and nine hits in the first game of their series (won by St. Paul, 3-1), many other teams laced up their hitting shoes during the first game of the series, last Tuesday. It was the IL offensive night of the season.

Worcester used 14 hits and 12 walks to bludgeon Norfolk, 20-4, as left fielder Eddy Alvarez (six RBIs) and second baseman Emmanuel Valdez each hit two home runs. It was already the sixth time in 46 games that the Tides had given up double figures, and the third time they had allowed more than 15 points.

But crazily enough, Norfolk responded by winning the final five games of the series to get over .500 at 28-23 and trail the Bisons by a game.

Also last Tuesday: Syracuse opened an East Division showdown at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre with a 12-1 victory, taking a 9-0 lead in four innings over top Yankees pitching prospect Adam Warren; Indianapolis used three four-run innings to eliminate Iowa, 18-6, as left fielder Matt Gorski hit two homers; and Lehigh Valley took a 13-0 lead in 3 1/2 innings and cruised past Rochester, 16-3, as former Bison Jordan Luplow homered, doubled, drove in three runs and scored one four.

• Niagara University’s first appearance in the NCAA tournament, which opens Friday at Oklahoma State, is the biggest news on the local baseball front this week. Meanwhile, the Purple Eagles’ top alumnus, outfielder Wynton Bernard, is in his eighth season in Triple-A.

Bernard, who split last year between the Bisons and Albuquerque after making his MLB debut with Colorado in 2022, is in Charlotte in the White Sox chain and is hitting .262 with one homer and nine RBIs in 28 matches. He was 5 for 13 in the Knights’ series last week in Nashville.

• Bisons second baseman Orelvis Martinez has 12 homers, one out of the league lead shared by five players. Center fielder Steward Berroa is the leader in stolen bases (21), while relief pitcher Luis Quinones’ five wins are one shy of the league lead.

• Memphis pitcher Sem Robberse, whom the Blue Jays sent to St. Louis last year in a trade for Jordan Hicks, is 5-2 with a 3.28 ERA in his 10 first starts in Triple-A. Born in the Netherlands, Robberse has 59 strikeouts (fourth on the IL) against just 19 walks, is one win away from the league lead and leads the IL with a 1.04 WHIP. He would look great in the Bisons rotation this season.

• The Atlanta Braves on Monday offered 28-year-old Cuban JP Martinez his first call-up to the major leagues to replace Ronald Acuna, who was out for the season. Martinez hit .265 with three home runs, 12 RBIs and a .731 OPS in Gwinnett.

The Braves continued to call up former Bison Forrest Wall, who is hitting .306 for the Stripers and leads the club in on-base (.495) and OPS (.912). Wall hit .266 and stole 35 bases for the Bisons in 2021. He then had 52 consecutive stealing seasons for Tacoma (2022) and Gwinnett (2023), leading the league each year.