Hudson Valley Renegades (0-0) at Greenville Drive (0-0) RHP Matt Sauer (First Start) vs. RHP Brian Van Belle (First Start) | Game 1 | Road Game 1 | Fluor Field | Greenville, SC | April 8, 2022 | First Pitch 7:05 p.m. | DOWN IN THE UPSTATE: The Hudson Valley Renegades begin their 2022 season on the road taking on the Greenville Drive, the High-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. This abbreviated three-game series at Fluor Field to start the season is the first time that the Renegades have played a game in South Carolina. It will also very briefly be the furthest south that Hudson Valley has ever played a game, but that will be surpassed on Tuesday, April 12 when the team begins a series in Rome, Georgia. The Renegades and Drive match up again for a six-game series from July 12-17 at Dutchess Stadium. OPENING ON THE ROAD... AGAIN: Hudson Valley is set to open its season on the road for the fifth straight season. In 2017, 2018 and 2019, the ‘Gades started the season at Aberdeen with a win, but kicked off the 2021 season with a loss at Jersey Shore. Incredibly, the Renegades played Aberdeen to start the season for 15 straight years from 2005-19, going 9-6 in those games. Overall, Hudson Valley is 7-2 in its last nine Opening Day affairs. UNPRECEDENTED TIMES: The 2022 season is set to be the longest in the history of the Hudson Valley Renegades. While operating as a Short Season-A team in the New York-Penn League from 1994-2020, the Renegades had never played more than 76 games in a season. In 2021, the club played 120 games in a season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic. The “new normal” for Hudson Valley is the 132-game schedule that is now uniform across Class-A leagues, beginning in 2022. The record-setting schedule length includes the earliest Opening Day in franchise history (April 8), earliest Home Opener (April 19), longest season-opening road trip (9 games), and first games played in South Carolina and Georgia. PRECEDENTED TIMES: The 30-man Break Camp roster for the Renegades includes 12 players who saw time with the 2021 team. The returners break down as six pitchers (Nelson Alvarez, Edgar Barclay, Nelvin Correa, Tanner Myatt, Matt Sauer, and Beck Way), three catchers (Carlos Narvaez, Saul Torres, and Austin Wells), one infielder (Eduardo Torrealba), and two outfielders (Pat DeMarco and Everson Pereira). PROSPECTS GALORE: The Renegades Break Camp roster features five of the Yankees’ top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline. Catcher Austin Wells (#4) and infielder Trey Sweeney (#5) are joined by outfielder Everson Pereira (#11), pitchers T.J. Sikkema (#20) and Beck Way (#22) and infielder Cooper Bowman (#25). Each of the Yankees last three first round draftees (Sikkema, 2019; Wells, 2020; and Sweeney, 2021) begin the season with Hudson Valley. THE RIVALRY IN HIGH-A: The season-opening series with the Greenville Drive represents the High-A edition of baseball’s greatest rivalry, Yankees-Red Sox. However, it has been 18 years since the club’s respective High-A affiliates played each other. From 1994-2004 the Tampa Yankees and Sarasota Red Sox both competed in the old Florida State League. The Sox moved their High-A affiliate to the Wilmington Blue Rocks for 2005 and 2006, the Lancaster JetHawks from 07-08 before settling in with the Salem Red Sox from 2009 until the Great Reorganization of 2020. The Yankees had their High-A affiliate with the Tampa Yankees/Tarpons from 1994 through 2020. MEET THE NEW LEAGUE, SAME AS THE OLD LEAGUE: Last month, Major League Baseball announced the return of traditional names for its minor leagues, re-christening “High-A East” as the South Atlantic League. The 2022 South Atlantic League is actually the third major iteration of a league with that name. The original South Atlantic League lasted on and off from 1904-1963, when it was moved up to Double-A and re-branded as the Southern League, which still exists today. The next SAL also began in 1903 under the name of the Western Carolinas League. It changed its name in 1980 and operated at the Single-A classification. High-A East (2021) and the current South Atlantic League are considered by MiLB to be one continuous league with the WCL/old SAL. BACK IN THE SALLY AGAIN: The Renegades playing in the South Atlantic League marks the return of a Yankees affiliate to the circuit for the first time since 2002. From 1980-84, and again from 1990-2002, the Bronx Bombers were affiliated with the Greensboro SAL franchise, then known as the Hornets (80-93) and Bats (94-02). The Yankees left Greensboro for a two-year stint in Battle Creek in the Midwest League, before settling their Single-A club in Charleston (SC) from 05-20. RECORD-SETTING SEASON: To nobody’s surprise, the Hudson Valley Renegades set 19 new franchise hitting records during the 2021 season, the first in team history as a full-season affiliate. The team and individual players set 19 new single-season hitting records, and 20 new single-season pitching records. Among the most ludicrous was the single-season mark for most team home runs hit (156; previous record, 53 in 1999 and 2002), and most strikeouts recorded by the pitching staff (1,308; previous record, 693 in 1998). GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY: The current nine-game road trip to Greenville and Rome is the longest season-opening road trip in franchise history. It also represents the second-longest road trip of the season, eclipsed by only a 12-game trip from June 14-27 to Greensboro and Winston-Salem.