Despite players and team officials around the league testing positive for the coronavirus in recent days, MLB released the full 30-team schedule for the 60-game 2020 MLB season on Monday.
The Giants will be one of two games on Opening Day, facing the Dodgers from Los Angeles on July 23. The A's will play host to the Los Angeles Angels on July 24 to open up their 60-game slate.
MLB teams will play divisional opponents 10 times each for 40 games total, and four times each against the opposite league's geographical equivalent division (NL West-AL West) for 20 games total.
Here are some of the most unique schedule notes from this year's abbreviated MLB season.
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No Giants-Dodgers in September
It's an annual tradition. The Giants and Dodgers tend to have at least one series between the two in the game's final month, when teams are sprinting towards the postseason. These games develop a playoff-like atmosphere due to both teams generally fighting for postseason berths.
However, in this shortened schedule the Giants will get all 10 of their games with LA in before Aug. 31, which marks this year's adjusted trade deadline. So if the Giants magically somehow contend for the postseason in 2020, they won't have to face the Dodgers' gauntlet of a lineup down the stretch.
Uneven rivalries
Due to the limiting of each team's season series' against division rivals, series are unbalanced, with one team having significantly fewer home games than the other. For example, the Giants will play seven of the 10 contests against the Dodgers in LA, with just three coming at Oracle Park. In Oakland, the A's will have to play seven road games at Minute Maid Park against the Houston Astros.
Although there won't be fans at any of these MLB games in 2020, it will be strange having just three visits to San Francisco on the schedule for Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers. In fact, seven of the Giants' first 17 games will be at Dodger Stadium.
Always a chance
It's not over until it's over. That old adage will ring true for MLB in 2020, as for the first time in the league's history, no team will be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention before September.
With just 60 games, there is plenty of room for variance, and every team enters with a chance.
[RELATED: Giants 2020 MLB schedule: Three big takeaways from tough 60-game slate]
Extra off-day?
The Giants are one of four teams that will play on July 23, one day before the rest of the league. With the season being 60 games in 67 days (from July 23-Sept. 27), each team gets seven off days.
But with one of those days being "Opening Night" for the Giants, Dodgers, New York Yankees and Washington Nationals, if you don't count that first day before Opening Day as a true day off, then San Francisco gets one extra day over the rest of the league.
It's the little things, folks.
Alternate sites
The ongoing pandemic forced the cancellation of a trio of international regular-season games (England, Mexico and Puerto Rico) in MLB scheduled for this season. But one neutral-site contest remains for 2020: the Aug. 13 showdown between the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals from Dyersville, Iowa, where the iconic baseball film "Field of Dreams" was filmed in 1989.
If you build it, they really will come. Even during a global pandemic.
Racking up the miles
Per usual, MLB teams on the West Coast are the most affected by the travel demands of professional sports. Four of the five AL West teams (A's rank fourth) fill out the teams traveling the most air miles, with the Los Angeles Angels being the lone exception.
The Milwaukee Brewers could multiply their total air miles this season by three and it still would be less distance than the Astros, Rangers and Mariners will go in 2020.
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