With the new minor league alignment and scheduling, the IronPigs spent six straight days not too far from home, playing a six-game series in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre against the Yankees top affiliate.

The Pigs dropped the series finale 4-3 on Sunday, and are now 5-7 against the RailRiders, who are not set to make an appearance at Coca-Cola Park until June 22.

The team returns home for a big homestand against Rochester, playing six games against the Red Wings.

The series isn’t necessarily big because Rochester is a good team - it’s the worst team in the Triple-A East - but rather because the ballpark will return to 100% capacity.

On the last homestand, the Pigs had a cap at 75% capacity, or about 7,500 fans per game. The largest crowd of the six games came in a doubleheader against Worcester, when 4,868 fans streamed into the park.

Teams across the country - even at the major league level - are seeing a slow return of fans to games, so the Pigs are not alone in being unable to sell all of their available tickets. Lehigh Valley generally ranks among the top attendance teams in all of minor league baseball.

Based on recent CDC recommendations, the team will not mandate the wearing of masks, but encourages fans to wear them unless they are fully vaccinated. A statement by the IronPigs noted that proof of vaccination will not be required.

GOING FOR GOLD … Luke Williams was placed on the Temporarily Inactive List to play for Team USA in an Olympic qualifier round. Now, Williams will likely be part of the roster that will compete in Japan for Olympic gold after the U.S. downed Venezuela to go 4-0 in their qualifying round of competition. Technically, baseball and softball aren’t Olympic sports, but a new rule allows the host country to nominate additional sports, and the Japanese Olympic Committee added both sports. In a twist of fate, Phillies manager Joe Girardi was supposed to manage the team, but stepped down when he was named to his current position. Scott Brosius took over, but later stepped down, and Mike Scioscia will now manage Team USA. Former Phillies reliever David Robertson is also on the team.

PLAN B … Cris Sanchez was supposed to start for Lehigh Valley Sunday in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but was promoted to Philadelphia and was scratched from the start. Reliever Ethan Evanko started instead and went two innings, allowing four earned runs and took the loss in a 4-3 game. Ramon Rosso, Damon Jones and Jeff Singer each pitched two scoreless innings in the loss, while Sanchez threw an inning and a third, striking out two and allowing just one hit in his MLB debut. While with the IronPigs, Sanchez had a franchise-record streak of 10 innings without allowing a hit.

STAY RIGHT THERE … Lehigh Valley has stranded 228 runners on base this season, second most in the Triple-A East. As a team, the IronPigs are hitting just .241 (64-for-266) with runners in scoring position, 14th in the East.

STANDINGS … Lehigh Valley (16-14) is currently fourth in the Northeast Division, trailing division leader Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (19-9) by four games. Worcester (17-13) stands three games back, and Buffalo (15-13) is also four games behind but lead the IronPigs by percentage points.

HOT PIGS … Bailey Falter (1-0, 1.93) will start against the Red Wings on Thursday as he fights to continue his charge up the league leaderboards. Coming into the series, Falter is second in ERA, tied for second in strikeouts (41) and fifth in WHIP (1.02). In his last five starts, Falter has collected his only win of the season and in 24 1/3 innings, has allowed just 19 hits and five walks while striking out 36 batters and posting an ERA of 0.74 in those starts … Mickey Moniak is getting hot for Lehigh Valley, hitting his sixth home run of the season on Sunday. In his last six games, Moniak has a line of .292/.333/.708.