MLB slates first interleague opener

One of baseball's traditional home openers will have an innovative twist next season.

THE WAY WE WERE

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The Cincinnati Reds will host the Los Angeles Angels on April 1, becoming the first teams to start their seasons with an interleague matchup. The Reds, the first professional team, celebrate Opening Day with a parade and have opened all but four seasons at home.

Major League Baseball announced its 2013 preliminary schedule Wednesday, with several format changes caused by the shift of the Houston Astros to the American League. A National League franchise for its first 51 seasons, the Astros start AL play on April 2 when they host cross-state rival Texas.

Houston moves from the NL Central to the AL West, creating six divisions of five teams each. Under a move announced last November, the Astros will become only the second team since 1900 to switch leagues, following Milwaukee's entry to the NL for the 1998 season.

Because there will be 15 teams in each major league for the first time, interleague play is necessary nearly every day. Since its inception in 1997, interleague play had been concentrated mostly during periods in late May and June.

Eleven of the 15 series on the final weekend of the regular season, Sept. 27-29, will involve division rivalries. The exceptions have the Yankees at Houston, Milwaukee at the Mets, Detroit at Miami and Washington at Arizona.

MLB is abandoning its two-year experiment with midweek openers, reverting to a Sunday night start in a nationally televised game on ESPN that will be determined later.

In another shift, the New York Yankees and Mets for now are slated to open at home on the same day for the first time, with Boston visiting the Bronx on April 1 and San Diego playing in Queens. ESPN could move Red Sox-Yankees to the March 31 Sunday night slot.

Other AL openers on April 1 have Kansas City at Chicago, Detroit at Minnesota and Seattle at Oakland. NL games that day are St. Louis at Arizona, Philadelphia at Atlanta, San Francisco at Los Angeles, Colorado at Milwaukee, Chicago at Pittsburgh and Miami at Washington.

Tuesday openers include Baltimore at Tampa Bay and Cleveland at Toronto.

ENEMY TERRITORY

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Under the new schedule format, a team plays 19 games against each division rival for a total of 76, and six or seven against each league opponent in the other two divisions for a total of 66. Each club will play 20 interleague games over eight series, with rivalry games — such as Cubs-White Sox and Dodgers-Angels — in consecutive two-game series during the week of May 27.

In the old format, teams in the AL East, AL Central, NL East and NL West played division rivals 18 times each, while AL West played in-division opponents 19 times apiece and NL Central teams met 15-18 times. AL interdivision opponents met six to 10 times and NL interdivision opponents six to nine times. While AL teams played 18 interleague games, the total varied from 12-18 in the NL.

In addition to traditional rivals, interleague play next year has the AL East playing the NL West, the NL East facing the AL Central and the AL West meeting the NL Central.