The 2025 Major League Baseball season begins in earnest Thursday, with 28 of 30 teams in action on the sport’s proper Opening Day.
The Los Angeles Dodgers enter the new season as favorites to repeat, further growing their superteam in the offseason. They’ll have stiff competition in the National League with the Braves, Padres, Mets and Phillies expected to contend as well. In the American League, the New York Yankees reloaded coming off their first World Series appearance in 15 years, but will be without ace Gerrit Cole this season.
Non-hater’s guide to MLB 2025: Stop whining and enjoy the Sho!
Opening Day: MLB starting lineups and probable pitchers Thursday
Thursday’s slate begins at 3:05 p.m. ET with the Yankees hosting the Brewers and goes through the night with games in Seattle and Arizona scheduled for 10:10 p.m. Some key matchups to start the season include Red Sox-Rangers, Guardians-Royals, Mets-Astros, Braves-Padres and Cubs-Diamondbacks.
Follow every MLB game: Latest MLB scores, stats, schedules and standings.
Keep it here all day Thursday for updates, scores and highlights from around baseball:
MLB Opening Day schedule
- Milwaukee Brewers at New York Yankees, 3:05 p.m. ET
- Baltimore Orioles at Toronto Blue Jays, 3:07 p.m.
- Boston Red Sox at Texas Rangers, 4:05 p.m.
- Philadelphia Phillies at Washington Nationals: 4:05 p.m.
- Cleveland Guardians at Kansas City Royals, 4:10 p.m.
- New York Mets at Houston Astros, 4:10 p.m.
- San Francisco Giants at Cincinnati Reds, 4:10 p.m.
- Atlanta Braves at San Diego Padres, 4:10 p.m.
- Los Angeles Angels at Chicago White Sox, 4:10 p.m.
- Pittsburgh Pirates at Miami Marlins, 4:10 p.m.
- Minnesota Twins at St. Louis Cardinals, 4:15 p.m.
- Detroit Tigers at Los Angeles Dodgers, 7:10 p.m.
- Chicago Cubs at Arizona Diamondbacks, 10:10 p.m.
- Athletics at Seattle Mariners, 10:10 p.m.
Watch select MLB games this season with Fubo Tyler O’Neill homers for sixth straight Opening Day
Baltimore Orioles outfielder Tyler O’Neill extended his Major League Baseball record by hitting a home run on Opening Day for the sixth season in a row.
Making his Orioles debut after signing a three-year, $49.5 million contract, O’Neill hit a three-run homer in the third inning off Toronto Blue Jays starter Jose Berrios.
Vinny Capra home run: First of career for Brewers spring training star
Holy smokes, the star of spring just tanked one to left field at Yankee Stadium.
Vinny Capra just hit his first career home run, pulling the Brewers back to within 2-1, and this one wasn’t hit softly over the right-field wall. Capra only had 30 minor-league home runs in his career but hit six bombs in spring training, with 14 RBIs and an OPS over 1.000. It’s how Capra earned a spot on the roster and made him the surprise starter at third base on Opening Day.
Great line on the radio broadcast: “One of the few guys who could hit a home run today that has fewer home runs than Ueck.”
– JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Austin Wells home run leads off for Yankees
Leading off the bottom of the first, New York catcher Austin Wells homered to right field against Brewers starter Freddy Peralta, giving the Yankees an early 1-0 lead at Yankee Stadium.
Wells is the first catcher to bat leadoff in franchise history.
Yankees vs Brewers gets Opening Day underway
Yankees lefty Carlos Rodón struck out Brewers leadoff hitter
Jackson Chourio in the Bronx, to officially begin MLB’s 2025 domestic Opening Day.
Rodón set Milwaukee down in order, needing just nine pitches to get through the first inning.
Reds’ Terry Francona went to dentist on Opening Day
Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona said on Wednesday that he’s made greater efforts later in his career to try to savor and enjoy Opening Day. That probably wasn’t as easy to achieve this year given his trip to the dentist on Thursday morning.
Francona started his first Opening Day in Cincinnati with a previously unplanned trip to a cosmetic dentist, he revealed during his pregame news conference Thursday at Great American Ball Park.
Asked at the outset of his 11:30 p.m. news conference with reporters what kind of morning he’d had so far, Francona said: “Not the best.”
“Woke up about 2 a.m. One of my veneers, I think I chewed out,” Francona said. “Woke up about 6 (a.m.) because I thought the trainer could probably get me in. So, then he called me about 8 a.m. and said, ‘you’re all set.’ I went out to wherever it was and got it fixed. Now I’m ready to go.”
– Pat Brennan, Cincinnati Enquirer
Tanner Bibee scratched for Guardians
Tanner Bibee turned himself into the Guardians’ No. 1 starter last year and recently signed a five-year, $48 million contract extension that could keep him in Cleveland through the 2030 season with a club option. There was a wave of positive momentum surrounding Bibee entering the 2025 season.
He was then tasked with taking the ball for the Guardians’ Opening Day game against the Kansas City Royals Thursday, but an illness has changed those plans, and he has been scratched from the start.
Instead, Ben Lively, coming off of a career year in 2024, will take the mound for the Guardians.
– Ryan Lewis, Akron Beacon Journal
How to watch MLB Opening Day
ESPN will broadcast Brewers vs. Yankees at 3:05 p.m. ET. That will be followed by the defending World Series champion Dodgers welcoming the Tigers at 7:10 p.m. ET. MLB Network promises to have regional coverage of the Cubs-Diamondbacks and A’s-Mariners night games.
For those looking to stream the action, games available on ESPN and MLB Network are also available through MLB.tv or FuboTV.
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