Once Major League Baseball and the Players Association both agreed they had reached the end of the road in failed negotiations, commissioner Rob Manfred moved forward with imposing a 2020 regular season.
Team owners unanimously approved Manfred’s plan for a 60-game season so long as players could commit to reporting for Spring Training 2.0 by July 1 and come to terms with the league on health and safety protocols.
The union met those two conditions, and MLB subsequently announced the regular season would begin July 23 or 24. More recently it became clear MLB intended to use July 23 as the first day of the season by having only four teams in action.
According to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, one of those games will be the New York Yankees facing hitting the road to face the Washington Nationals:
But the current plan in to launch the regular season on July 23, but not with a full slate of games. The highlight of the day will be the Yankees at Nationals Park against the defending champs, likely in prime time, The Post has learned.
The defending World Series champion Nationals were a safe bet to play on Opening Night of the 2020 season, and a matchup with the Yankees presents an opportunity to see aces on the mound.
Gerrit Cole, who was with the Houston Astros when they lost to the Nationals in the 2019 World Series, presumably will start for the Yankees. The Nationals could counter with longtime ace Max Scherzer or reigning World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg.
As for the other game MLB is expected to schedule on July 23, an early favorite amongst fans has been for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros to play. It would mark their first meeting since MLB found the Astros guilty of electronically stealing signs during the 2017 World Series.
The Dodgers are slated to play 20 of their games this season against teams from the American League West. Six of those (two three-game series) likely will come against the L.A. Angels. That will leave the Dodgers with two three-game series against two other AL West teams, and a pair of home-and-home two-game series against the remaining two teams from the division.
The Dodgers will play 10 games against each National League West team.
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