Major League Baseball today announced the much-anticipated 2023 full season schedule. Opening Day is set for March 30. The Red Sox will start the new campaign at home against the Baltimore Orioles.
The new approach to scheduling baseball games for next year is no small feat and it may result in some teams, including the Red Sox, having an advantage they haven’t had before. Here’s how it works (and if you don’t care, just scroll on down to the 2023 Red Sox schedule).
A new kind of schedule
The new schedule is considered balanced in that all 30 Major League teams will face each other over the course the season. Currently, competition is limited to a select number of teams from the opposing league.
The new schedule splits all play into Division Games, Intraleague Games (against teams in the same league), and Interleague Games (against teams in the opposing league).
Beyond seeing all other teams, the new schedule’s biggest impact may be the reduction of games played against division rivals. This was a necessary concession made in order to fit the goals of a balanced schedule into the confines of a 162-game calendar. Division Games will drop from the 19 played this year to 13 next year.
In practice, this means the Red Sox will play 52 total games (rather than the current 76) against the Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays, and Yankees. Those 52 games will be evenly split, with 26 home games and 26 played on the road.
In addition to a reduction in division games, the number of Intraleague Games will go from 66 this year to 64 next year, while games against the opposing league will rise from 20 this year to 46 in 2023.
New Start: Spring Training
The official Spring Training calendar starts on Friday, February 24, with the Sox taking on Northeastern University, for the traditional exhibition game that day. The first official Spring game for Boston comes the next day, when the Sox will open Grapefruit League action at the home of the Braves, CoolToday Park.
In all, the Sox are scheduled to play 32 spring games, including 18 at home at JetBlue Park at Fenway South in Lee County, Florida.
Red Sox 2023 Calendar
After a home series to open 2023 against Baltimore, the Red Sox will face the Pirates at Fenway in an immediate turn to Interleague action. The Sox will then go on to host the Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers, Marlins, Mets, Reds, and Rockies at Fenway next season. On the road, Boston will see the remaining National League teams and will also see the Braves in Atlanta, as well.
The new calendar makes for more travel for all teams next year and includes some long stints out west for the Red Sox, including a nine-game stretch to the homes of the Padres, Angels and Diamondbacks at the end of May.
If all goes to plan, the regular season will wrap up on October 1 with a four-game set against Baltimore, the team where it all started back in March.
