Major League Baseball officially announced their 2023 schedule this week. For all baseball fans, this is always an exciting time to see who your favorite team will be playing on Opening Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and more! But this year’s schedule offers a bit more significance and excitement for baseball fans across the country!
The old MLB schedule format was set up for all 30 teams to play their division rivals 19 times, the same teams in their league at least twice along with playing one division outside their league one time. The 2023 season will be a bit different this time around. The league announced that all 30 teams will be playing every single team at least once. As a result of this change, division opponents will now only be playing each other 13 times rather than 19 times. The new balanced schedule for 2023 will also have each team hosting a three-game series or playing a three-game series on the road against every team from the opposite league.
Natural rivals that play each other every year like the New York Mets and New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs will play each other four times, twice at home and twice on the road. Before this new schedule format, other than natural rivals, teams would participate in interleague play only against a single division from the opposite league. The changes mean not every team will visit every city every year, but they’re all guaranteed one series against each team from the other league.
This new schedule format is a huge win for Major League Baseball and the fans as well. It used to be that teams only got a chance to play an interleague division once a year and had to wait four years to play that same division again while playing a different interleague division each year. Now, every team will be playing each other. This will be a great way for superstars in each division to play each other at least once a year and showcase their talents against each other. Fans around the game of baseball have to be excited about this new format. Opening Day is scheduled for March 30 and ends on October 1. Also, all 30 MLB teams are scheduled to play on Jackie Robinson Day on April 15.
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