Major League Baseball officially announced its complete 2020 regular season schedule, and the Los Angeles Dodgers will be one of the teams playing on Opening Night when they host the rival San Francisco Giants on July 23.
Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the league needing to shut down for a few months, the 2020 season will certainly be a peculiar one. Teams will only be playing 60 games and opponents are limited to those in division as well as the corresponding geographical division in the opposing league.
So as a breakdown for the Dodgers’ 60 games, they will be playing 40 of them against National League West teams and the other 20 against American League West clubs. That should make for some interesting Interleague matchups with the Dodgers playing the Houston Astros four times and the L.A. Angels six times, among others.
Geographically speaking, the West Coast teams having to travel to Texas, and vice versa, represents the largest distance that MLB teams will have to fly in 2020. Because of that, the Dodgers will be traveling the ninth-most amount of miles in 2020, per Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times:
The Dodgers will travel 10,291 miles, the ninth-most in the majors, while the Angels will travel 10,457, seventh-most.
It’s clear MLB prioritized limiting travel in 2020, although they could have taken even one step further if they wanted to. The Dodgers will be playing all NL West teams 10 times, spread across three different series.
That means that they will be traveling to both Arizona and San Diego twice, whereas MLB could have limited it to one if they went with two five-game series instead.
Additionally, the Dodgers will be traveling to Houston to face the Astros at the end of July, and then will be going back to Texas to face the Rangers at the end of August, as opposed to knocking out both series in one trip.
Regardless, MLB releasing the schedule means that the start of the season is just around the corner. The Dodgers have one of the best rosters in all of baseball, although they will have to make sure to come out hot as anything can happen in a 60-game season.
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