2025 MLB schedule: Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers begin season in Japan; A’s face Cubs in Sacramento home opener

Major League Baseball announced Thursday it will begin the 2025 season in Japan for the first time since 2019 and sixth time in league history. That opening matchup will feature four of the country’s biggest baseball stars in Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shōta Imanaga, and Seiya Suzuki as the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs will play at the Tokyo Dome on March 18-19, 2025.

The Cubs going back to Japan to open a season will fall on the 25th anniversary of MLB’s first trip there when Chicago took on the New York Mets in 2000. The league later went back in 2004 (New York Yankees vs. Tampa Bay Rays), 2008 (Boston Red Sox vs. Oakland A‘s), 2012 (Seattle Mariners vs. A’s), and 2019 for a Mariners-A’s rematch that also featured the final two games of Ichiro‘s MLB career.

This will also be the Cubs’ third time playing overseas following the 2000 Tokyo series and their 2023 trip to London, England. For the Dodgers, they will travel to Japan for the first time but be featured internationally for the fourth time after going to Sydney, Australia in 2014, Monterrey, Mexico in 2018, and Seoul, South Korea to begin the 2024 MLB season.

Other 2025 MLB schedule highlights

• March 31: A’s home opener against the Cubs at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, California after they begin the season with four games on the road in Seattle.

• May 16-18: Main inter-league rivals will play one another six times in 2025 with one of their two series falling on “Rivalry Weekend” in mid-May.

• July 15: 95th MLB All-Star Game at Truist Park in Atlanta

• September 28: Final day of the 2025 regular season. Among the matchups that day will see divisional foes like the Orioles and Yankees and Cardinals and Cubs facing off.