MLB Announces 2019 Regular Season Schedule; A's, Mariners to Play in Tokyo

Major League Baseball announced the schedule for its 2019 regular season on Wednesday.

Manny Randhawa and Chad Thornburg of MLB.com reported the campaign will begin with a series between the AL West rival Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners in Tokyo on March 20-21 ahead of the standard Opening Day on March 28, the earliest date in league history.

MLB moved the starting date up beginning in 2018 to accommodate three or four additional off days for each team during the course of the 162-game season.

No other changes have been made to the format for 2019 after a brief discussion earlier in the year about the possibility of reducing the number of contests.

In April, commissioner Rob Manfred told the Associated Press Sports Editors a shorter schedule, which was mentioned by Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo, would also mean reduced pay for players, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com.

"I think that Anthony's comments were realistic in the sense that he linked the fact that if, in fact, you're going to go to 154 games or some lower number of games, that players would have to be participants in that process," Manfred said. "They're going to work less, they're probably going to make less."

There were never substantial discussions about dropping the total from 162 for 2019, though.

The 2019 MLB All-Star Game is scheduled for July 9 at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.