{"id":69098,"date":"2024-03-24T16:49:25","date_gmt":"2024-03-24T20:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=69098"},"modified":"2024-03-24T16:49:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T20:49:25","slug":"cubs-dodgers-japan-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/03\/24\/cubs-dodgers-japan-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Cubs And Dodgers To Start 2025 Season In Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A report came out this morning that the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/03\/23\/carl-edwards-jr-opt-out-cubs\/\" target=\"_self\">Chicago Cubs<\/a>\u00a0and Los Angeles Dodgers will head to Japan to start next season. Similar to the games in South Korea between the Dodgers and Padres this year, these games will most likely take place just over a week before the rest of the regular season will commence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Report: Cubs And Dodgers To Start 2025 Season In Japan<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">REPORT: Cubs and Dodgers Told They&#8217;ll Open the 2025 Season in Japan<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/X43gSpNRix\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/X43gSpNRix<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UbPWE669M2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/UbPWE669M2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BleacherNation\/status\/1771928280964227474?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 24, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><b>Not The First Time<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Baseball&#8217;s international play in regular season action is a testament to the global unity of the sport. The last time a regular season game was played in Japan was in 2019, when the Mariners and A\u2019s played a pair of games, with Seattle taking both victories. The Cubs and Cardinals made their mark across the pond this season, playing a two-game series in London that ended in a draw. It&#8217;s a small world, after all, especially when it comes to baseball.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rest of the 2024 season will again see international play in Mexico and the UK. The Astros and Rockies will play a two-game set in Mexico City on April 27 and 28. Later, the Mets and Phillies will follow suit in London. Similar to what the Cubs and Cardinals did last year. The last time a regular season game was played in Japan was in 2019. The Mariners and A\u2019s played two games,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> both of which Seattle won.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>A Homecoming For Some Stars\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s a homecoming for some of baseball&#8217;s brightest stars. Each team participating in the Opening Series next season boasts two Japanese stars. The Dodgers will bring over sensation <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ohtansh01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shohei Ohtani<\/a>\u00a0and current first-year starting pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/y\/yamamyo01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a>. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Japan will see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suzukse01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.baseball-reference.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Seiya Suzuki<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/09\/shota-imanaga-signs-cubs\/\" target=\"_self\">current first-year left-hander <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=imanag000sho&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.baseball-reference.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-03-24_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shota Imanaga<\/a> return to their homeland for the brief series as well. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Imanaga all participated in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2022\/07\/23\/2023-world-baseball-classic\/\" target=\"_self\">World Baseball Classic<\/a> just over a year ago. They were extremely important in their efforts to bring home the gold for Japan, defeating the U.S. in the finals. Suzuki was supposed to be a part of the group but missed the entire competition due to suffering a moderate oblique strain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A report came out this morning that the Chicago Cubs\u00a0and Los Angeles Dodgers will head to Japan to start next season. Similar to the games in South Korea between the Dodgers and Padres this year, these games will most likely take place just over a week before the rest of the regular season will commence.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5007,"featured_media":69114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,33],"tags":[68,69,645,94],"class_list":["post-69098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-dodgers","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-nl-central","tag-nl-west"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5007"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}