NEW YORK.- Shohei Ohtani lost Los Angeles Dodgers They start the 2025 season of the MLB in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs on March 18 and the Athletics will open their home games in Sacramento against the Cubs on March 31.
All teams are scheduled to play games on March 27, making it the earliest Opening Day outside of international games, Major League Baseball confirmed Thursday. Games were played on March 28 in 2019.
Each team will play six games against its main interleague rivals, instead of four. That means there will be more games between the Yankees and the New York Mets, as well as the Dodgers and Angels, Cubs and White Sox and Athletics and San Francisco Giants. The Rivalry Weekend will be played May 16-18 and will include interleague rivalries including Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia, Colorado vs. Arizona, Detroit vs. Toronto and Houston vs. Texas.
It’s the third consecutive season with a balanced schedule, with a team playing 13 games against each divisional opponent and six or seven against other clubs in its league for a total of 62. The remaining 48 games will be against opponents in the opposite league. Teams will be at home against the same opponents in the opposite league they hosted in 2023.
The American League used the balanced schedule format from 1977 to 2000, the National League from 1993 to 2000.
The Dodgers and Cubs will play at Tokyo Dome on March 18-19, marking the 25th anniversary of the first regular-season MLB game on Japanese soil between the Mets and Cubs. Other inaugural games in Japan included the Yankees against Tampa Bay (2004), Boston and Oakland (2008), Seattle and Oakland (2012) and Seattle and Oakland (2019). The Dodgers opened the season against San Diego in Seoul in 2024.
MLB and the Players Association attempted to play regular-season games in Paris next June, but abandoned the plan because they could not find a sponsor. The collective bargaining agreement includes international games in September 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but they are not on the calendar.
New era for the A’s:
After playing at the Coliseum since 1968, Oakland will play at Sutter Health Park, home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A team, from 2025-27, with a capacity of 10,500. The A’s open the season with a four-game series in Seattle before hosting the Cubs.
The other games on March 27 are the Cubs at Arizona, the Angels at the White Sox in Chicago, San Francisco at Cincinnati, the Mets at Houston, Cleveland at Kansas City, Detroit at the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pittsburgh at Miami, Milwaukee at the Yankees in New York, Minnesota at St. Louis, Atlanta at San Diego, Colorado at Tampa Bay, Boston at Texas, Baltimore at Toronto and Philadelphia at Washington.
The All-Star Game will be played at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 15 and the regular season ends on September 28.
Source: AP
