The 2025 season will begin on March 18 in Tokyo against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani, and on March 31 in Sacramento at home against the Chicago Cubs, the Athletics will open their inaugural season in Sacramento.
Major League Baseball announced on Thursday that all 30 teams will begin their regular season on March 27, the earliest starting day outside of international games. There have been games on March 28 both this season and in prior years.
Instead of playing four games against their primary interleague foe, each team will play six. This implies more games between teams such as the Athletics and San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels, the Cubs and Chicago White Sox, and the New York Yankees and Mets.
May 16–18 is set aside for a “Rivalry Weekend” that will feature these important interleague rivalries in addition to games between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Colorado and Arizona, Detroit and Toronto, and Houston and Texas.
Each team will play six or seven games against every other team in its league and thirteen games versus division rivals for a schedule that is balanced for the third straight season. A total of 62 games will be played.
With a three-game series against each of the other 14 clubs, the last 48 games will be played against teams from the opposing league. The same interleague opponents that teams hosted in 2023 will return.
The National League followed a balanced schedule from 1993 to 2000, and the American League followed one from 1977 to 2000.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of MLB’s inaugural regular-season games in Japan, which featured the Cubs and Mets, the Dodgers and Cubs will play at the Tokyo Dome on March 18–19.
The Yankees and Tampa Bay (2004), Boston and Oakland (2008), Seattle and Oakland (2012), and Seattle and Oakland (2019) were among the teams that opened in Tokyo previously. In Seoul, South Korea, the Dodgers and San Diego opened the 2024 season.
Due to a lack of sponsorship, MLB and the players’ association decided against moving forward with their original proposal to stage regular-season games in Paris in June of 2020. Additionally, September 2025 games in San Juan, Puerto Rico were mentioned in the collective labor agreement, but they were not set in stone.
For the 2025–2027 season, the Athletics will play at Sutter Health Park after having called Oakland’s Coliseum home since 1968. There are about 10,500 fixed seats in this stadium, which is home to the Triple-A River Cats of the San Francisco Giants.
Before playing the Cubs, the A’s will open the season with a four-game series in Seattle. They will host the Giants again from July 4-6 and play them in San Francisco’s Oracle Park from May 16–18.
The Athletics spent their first 13 seasons in Kansas City after starting out in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954. They intend to move to a new ballpark in Las Vegas beginning in 2028, according to announcements.
In order to accommodate both the A’s and the River Cats, artificial turf is being built in Sacramento, where summertime highs reach over 100 degrees.
In addition, the Cubs travel to Arizona on March 27, the Angels travel to the White Sox, the Giants travel to Cincinnati, the Mets travel to Houston, Cleveland travels to Kansas City, Detroit travels to the Dodgers, Pittsburgh travels to Miami, Milwaukee travels to the Yankees, Minnesota travels to St. Louis, Atlanta travels to San Diego, Colorado travels to Tampa Bay, Boston travels to Texas, Baltimore travels to Toronto, and Philadelphia travels to Washington.
The times of the games are unknown.
The regular season will end on September 28 and the All-Star Game will be held at Atlanta’s Truist Park on July 15.