Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers start the 2025 MLB season in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs on 18th March and the Athletics will open their home games in Sacramento against the Cubs on March 31.
The Los Angeles Dodgers announced that they will begin the 2025 season in Japan. For the second consecutive year, the team will begin the campaign in Asia, but this time at the Tokyo Dome.
“Mark your calendars. The Dodgers are headed to Japan for the Tokyo Series presented by Guggenheim! We can not wait to see you next March at the Tokyo Dome,” said the team on social media.
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This is also going to be the 25th anniversary of the first regular-season games held in Japan, when the Cubs faced the Mets at the Tokyo Dome on March 29-30, 2000.
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, and 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.
A 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, Minnesota at St. Louis, Atlanta at San Diego, Milwaukee at the Yankees in New York, Colorado at Tampa Bay, Baltimore at Toronto, Boston at Texas 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.
In addition, 2025 could see the return of Shohei Ohtani as a pitcher and hitter, so he could be back to pitch again in the country where he emerged as the big star.
