In what is clearly the biggest announcement in sports-related things today, Major League Baseball released the 2026 regular season schedule. Pay little attention to the footballer and hit-making musician announcing their engagement, we can talk about that tomorrow on the off day.
The Cincinnati Reds will be opening up the season at home, as is usual for the better part of the franchise’s history. And next year they will be opening things up with a 3-game series against the Boston Red Sox. The season will begin on Thursday, March 26th. There will be the built in off day on Friday just in case weather becomes a factor, before the two teams return to the field on Saturday and Sunday to finish up the series.
Here’s what the full schedule looks like:
Next year the Reds interleague series will have them hosting the Red Sox, the Los Angeles Angels, the Detroit Tigers, the Houston Astros, the Kansas City Royals, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Guardians, and the Sacramento Athletics. They will hit the road to face the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians, New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, Chicago White Sox, and the season closes out in Canada against the Toronto Blue Jays.
If there’s something that really stands out to this particular writer when looking at the schedule is just how tough things could be in September. Two games with San Diego, six with the Brewers, seven with the Dodgers, three with the Cubs, three with Atlanta, and three with Toronto. A year from now is a long time and who knows how those teams will be at that point – but the odds are that they’ll all be pretty dang good given everything we know about them.
The schedule does not that it’s subject to change, but I can’t recall the last time that it actually was changed (other than rain outs, of course).
Looking at the schedule for next year, the Reds need to win early and often until the end of April. That stretch of games and the ones in the first half of August look to be where the Reds have the best chance of playing above .500 baseball. From mid August till the end of the season look to be extremely challenging and hopefully the games will be meaningful and the Reds are in the playoff hunt once again.
September 2026 really looks brutal… They won’t face Dodgers until that month next season only to play to them 7 times in 10 days. They have to win early a lot of games to be able to have some playoff chance at the season end.
From June 8 to July 22 there will be also many tough series to play…
September does look rough, but you never know what will happen in a season. Maybe it will be rough and maybe it won’t.
No doubt the schedule was set for release ahead of time by MLB. That said, isn’t it quite a coincidence that the Reds/Krall come up with a couple of diversions when the Reds appear to be seriously stubbing their collective toe in the 2025 postseason race?
Over the weekend, we got the Krall proclamation that not only Burns but also Lowder may soon be back on the field, followed today by the announcement that the Red Sox will be the 2026 opening day opponent.
The tail that wags the dog is alive and well.
LOL, Oh good, more conspiracy theories.
No conspiracy theories. I said the schedule stuff was no doubt well orchestrated in advance for all teams by MLB. That’s just a stupid general distraction at the start of the stretch run for fans of teams that have nothing left to play for.
On the other hand it is not normal SOP for the PoBO to make a rare public statement that two pitchers are going to throw a bullpen session this week and depending on the results may be soon activated.
This is especially true where Lowder is concerned because they had all but said he was done for the season. Then it turns out the more likely situation for him is that he will be put on rehab and work at AAA in September. But they got the splash first.
I am in that group that isn’t trying to decide how to make a big deal out of the 2026 schedule, but seeing as there are those who already are, I feel inept. When does Boston play the Yankees?
Winning a lot of games in April is a really great idea. Wish I’d thought of that.
Great opening weekend series against Bosox.
The Reds have a ton of games against the AL in the first month plus! I agree that looks like a time the Reds are going to have an opportunity to win some games.
I also don’t like how both times we play the Brewers it’s all bunch together in two 2-week periods.