The 2013 MLB schedule has been released, the first that will see at least one interleague matchup during every series of the year. There are also some additional quirks to things….let's take a look at it all. The season is back to starting earlier, and Opening Day league-wide will be on Monday, April 1st…well, aside from the Sunday "Opening Night" game on ESPN. All schedule information from MLB.com.
Each division is matched up with another division for interleague games, Each team will play 20 interleague games, with 16 of them being against the division they're matched up with. Each team will play ten interleague home games, and ten road games. Each team will play a two game road series and a two game home series against one team from the other, and will play a four game series made up of two home games and two road games back to back against a team from another division.
For the "traditional" interleague matchups, the AL East is matched up with the NL West, the AL Central is matched up with the AL East, and the AL West is matched up with the NL Central. For the "two and two" series, each team will be matched up with a team from the opposite division in the other league (East/East, Central/Central, West/West). The two and two series will happen during May 27-30 league-wide.
Each team will play 19 games against teams in their own division, and will play six games against four of the teams in the other divisions, and seven games against the other six teams in their league.
It's not the true balanced schedule we're all looking for, but it's a lot better than what we've been dealing with in recent years. It's also worth noting that the first interleague series of the year will be in Cincinnati between the Angels and Reds. 24 of the 30 teams will have games on the 1st. The season will conclude on Sunday, September 29th with the playoffs probably kicking off on Monday the 30th or Tuesday the 1st, which will likely prevent us from toying with November baseball this year. The final interleague series of the year will be between the Tigers and Marlins in Miami during the final weekend of the year. The World Baseball Classic will also return in March, with dates still to be announced for that.
Honestly, this is a pretty solid job by MLB to get some semblance of a balanced schedule going within the division. It could be much, much worse, and this is a great effort.
