NEW YORK — The Los Angeles Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani will open the 2025 season in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs on March 18 and the Athletics will begin the home portion of their first season in Sacramento against the Cubs on March 31.
All 30 teams are scheduled for March 27, marking the first opening day beyond international games, Major League Baseball announced Thursday. There were games on March 28, 2019 and this season.
Each team will play six games against its main interleague rival instead of four, increasing matchups between the New York Yankees and Mets, the Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels, the Cubs and Chicago White Sox, and the Athletics and San Francisco Giants. What is being called Rivalry Weekend is scheduled for May 16-18 and includes major interleague rivalries along with Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia, Colorado vs. Arizona, Detroit vs. Toronto and Houston vs. Texas.
In the third consecutive season of a return to a balanced schedule, a team will play 13 games against each divisional rival and six or seven against each other club in its league, for a total of 62. The remaining 48 games are against league opponents, with a single series of three games against each of the other 14. clubs from the opposite league. Teams will play at home against the same league opponents they hosted in 2023.
The American League used a balanced schedule from 1977-2000 and the National League from 1993-2000.
The Dodgers and Cubs will play at the Tokyo Dome on March 18-19, marking the 25th anniversary of the Mets and Cubs playing the first MLB regular-season games in Japan. Other debuts in Tokyo include the Yankees and Tampa Bay (2004), Boston and Oakland (2008), Seattle and Oakland (2012) and Seattle and Oakland (2019). The Dodgers and San Diego the 2024 season has started in Seoul, South Korea.
MLB and the players’ association intended to play regular-season games in Paris next June, but abandoned the plan because they couldn’t find a sponsor. The collective bargaining agreement also called for games in September 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but none were included.
After playing in Oakland’s Coliseum since 1968, the Athletics plan to spend the 2025-27 seasons at Sutter Health Park, home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A River Dogs and a stadium with a seating capacity of about 10,500. The A’s open with a four-game series in Seattle before hosting the Cubs. They play the Giants at San Francisco’s Oracle Park May 16-18 and host the Giants July 4-6. The Athletics franchise began in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954 and moved to Kansas City for 13 seasons. The team announced plans to move to a new stadium in Las Vegas from 2028.
High daytime temperatures in Sacramento often exceed 100 degrees in the summer, artificial turf is being installed to accommodate the A’s and River Dogs.
Other March 27 games include Cubs at Arizona, Angels at White Sox, San Francisco at Cincinnati, Mets at Houston, Cleveland at Kansas City, Detroit at Dodgers, Pittsburgh at Miami, Milwaukee at Yankees, Minnesota at St., Atlanta at San Diego, Colorado in Tampa Bay, Boston in Texas, Baltimore in Toronto and Philadelphia in Washington.
Game times have not been announced.
O All-Game will be at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 15th and the regular season ends on September 28th.
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The title of this story has been corrected to show that the season begins in Tokyo on March 18, not March 19.
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