With the game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees, the American baseball league will start into a much shortened season on July 23.
Now the dates are fixed:
The MLB season kicks off on July 23rd with the duel between defending champions Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees.
The match between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants will also be played on this day. The remaining teams will complete the season opener on 24 July.
Shortened game plan
The league had only agreed on a shortened season in June after weeks of discussions with the players’ union MLBPA. According to the agreement, only 60 instead of the originally planned 162 games will be played in the “Regular Season”.
In order to keep the number of trips as low as possible, each team will play a total of ten matches against the four teams from its own division. The remaining 20 matches will be played against teams from other divisions, which are geographically the most favourable.
Due to a deadlocked dispute between the league and the players, the start of the season, which was originally planned for 26 March, was on the brink of collapse for a long time. The league’s proposals for a reduced season with salary cuts for the players had initially been rejected by the players’ union, with the professionals wanting to play 70 matches.
On Friday the teams were allowed to start training again for the first time. However, the Washington Nationals, Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals cancelled their Monday sessions due to the failure of the COVID-19 test results from the previous Friday.