The new baseball season is still young, but Major League Baseball officials are already concerned by the playing surface at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.
The Toronto Blue Jays Jays have installed a new playing surface after using the previous iteration for five years. The Rogers Centre is just one of two playing surfaces in the league that use AstroTurf with Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, being the other. The rest of the league’s stadiums use natural grass.
Due to some irregular bounces in the Jays’ first home-stand of the season, the league is looking into the surface according to Jon Morosi of FOX Sports.
Despite the league not yet coming to any conclusions relating to the new turf installed before this season, officials are worried about issues affecting fair play.
Blue Jays right fielder Joey Bautistia has already noted the difference between the current surface and the previous one. “It looks slower to all kinds of eyes,” he explained to Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star.
“It’s weird, but we’re going to have to adjust,” he said. “It’s definitely a lot slower than it was in the past and a lot slower than any other artificial turf I’ve ever laid my feet on.”
However, Jays spokespersons have simply pointed to the turf being new as the issue.
Jays officials say the turf will quicken as it is used more, and particularly after it is rolled a few times and the rubber infill - those black pellets, which puff a smoke-like cloud with every bounce - settles into the simulated root zone.
The Jays are expected to move to natural grass by the start of the 2018 season.
