MLB announces 2025 season opener between Dodgers and Cubs in Tokyo

The Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, two teams with some of Japan’s top talent, will face off in Tokyo next spring in a two-game season-opening series, Major League Baseball announced Thursday.

The games are scheduled for March 18 and 19 at the Tokyo Dome, before the traditional opening day in American stadiums on March 27.

Shohei Ohtani (L) of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Shota Imanaga of the Chicago Cubs watch the MLB All-Star home run derby at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on July 15, 2024, on the eve of the annual Major League Baseball event. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

Dodgers Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are set to begin their second consecutive season in Asia, after the team opened its 2024 campaign with a two-game divisional series against the San Diego Padres in Seoul.

On the opposite side for the 2025 series, Japanese Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga are expected to appear for the Cubs.

The last official MLB games were played in Japan in 2019, when Ichiro Suzuki appeared in his final major league game as his Seattle Mariners took on the Oakland Athletics in a season-opening series at the Tokyo Dome.

MLB said the upcoming series would be the sixth time it has opened a season in Tokyo and would mark the 25th anniversary of the first regular-season games ever played in Japan in 2000 between the Cubs and New York Mets.

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