MLB Releases 2020 Schedule, Yankees to Face Nationals on Opening Day

Major League Baseball revealed its schedule for the league's shortened 60-game season on MLB Network on Monday evening. 

The 2020 MLB season will open with two nationally-televised games on Thursday, July 23 before the rest of the league plays on July 24. The reigning champion Washington Nationals will play host to the New York Yankees to open the season, while the San Francisco Giants will visit the Los Angeles Dodgers later that day.

The league and MLB Players Association came to an agreement on June 23 to go forward with a shortened 60-game season. The final plan followed weeks of failed negotiations between the two parties, with disagreements on the number of games played and whether the players would receive full prorated salaries.

All MLB teams will play in their home ballparks to conduct the season, which includes a second bout of Spring Training that began on July 1. Each team is slated to complete 40 divisional games, with the remaining 20 games coming against teams in the opposite league's corresponding geographical division. 

MLB and the players' union announced the first set of results for COVID-19 testing on Friday, publishing that 38 out of 3,185 tests returned positive (1.2%). Of the 38 positive tests, 31 came from players and seven from staff members, while 19 different clubs had at least one individual test positive.

A number of MLB players, including the Dodgers' David Price, Nationals' Ryan Zimmerman and Rockies' Ian Desmond, have decided to sit out the 2020 season due to COVID-19 concerns.

Find the full schedule for the 2020 MLB season here.