

But I have listened to every track on the Ryan McMahon album and taken a frame-by-frame look at every scene in the Ryan McMahon movie. At the risk of being rude and dismissive, I would like to formally announce that I have maxed out my Ryan McMahon quota for this lifetime. Just as important as the players you are seeing, however, are the players you aren’t seeing. There are also old friends to reunite with, from Kevin Gausman to Matt Duffy. And I’ll get to check out Julio Rodríguez and more Sandy Alcantara and … you get the idea. If he’s playing the Giants, though, I’ll get that look. I’ve been not watching the Orioles my whole life, and it’s worked out. How good does he look behind the plate? Is he really the next Buster Posey? Better? I could turn on MLB.tv and watch an Orioles game, I suppose, but it’s so much easier to not do that.

Baseball will never be a star-driven game, but there is still appeal to fresh faces and different players. But, yes, now you get to see Ohtani, Guerrero, Mike Trout, Aaron Judge (on the Red Sox for maximum chaos) and all of the other players you might get to watch once every three years, if that, under the old schedule setup. With that going for it, the new, balanced schedule is already a success. The new CBA got them most of the way gone, but now they’re even closer to extinction. There will still be long stretches without a day off (there are 14 consecutive games in April, bouncing between Detroit, Miami and San Francisco, so it’s not all gravy), but the murder excursions are gone. Mostly, I’m happy for the people who aren’t players but have to travel to 81 games every year. Rested players are better players, by definition, and so are happier players. But the quality of play should improve, even if only slightly. This won’t be an advantage for any single team, at least not in any way that we’ll be able to measure. It’s not just twice as hard the grind becomes exponential.

There will be a couple of trips where the travel is made worse because of geography - there’s a six-game trip that takes the Giants from San Diego to Chicago without a day off between - but the difference between a week on the road and two weeks on the road is substantial. Players, coaches, broadcasters, clubhouse managers, executives, everyone. This is a remarkable quality-of-life improvement for everyone. Those are the only road trips longer than six games. 14, they’ll play in Colorado for a four-game set, take a day off and then play two games against the Diamondbacks and four against the Dodgers. On July 14, immediately following the All-Star break, the Giants start a 10-game road trip that takes them through Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Washington. Two days later, they’ll fly to Milwaukee for a four-game series. On May 22, the Giants will play in Minnesota to begin a three-game series. The marathon road trip has been nearly eliminated, and regardless of how you feel about all of the other changes, this one should make up for all the negatives. We’ll get to the obvious perks of seeing every team at least once in a season ( Shohei Ohtani! Vladimir Guerrero Jr.! Matt Moore!), but let’s start with the best change of all: a more reasonable travel schedule. The #SFGiants 2023 schedule has been announced 🗓 /cEHng3HCxd Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of the 2023 Giants schedule. There are positives and there are negatives to this format, so let’s explore them through the prism of someone who cares only about the Giants. But this is not the only quirk of the 2023 MLB schedule, which was released Wednesday and features a new, balanced format. Thairo Estrada is returning to Yankee Stadium for the first game of the 2023 season. Six of those games are San Francisco, including the final weekend of the regular season, from September 29 to October 1. This year, with the new MLB schedule, the Dodgers and Giants play 13 times instead of 19. The Dodgers over the last four years are 27-16 (.628) on the road against the Giants, including the postseason. Last year the Dodgers won 15 of 19 games against the Giants, and their 7-3 mark in San Francisco were their most victories in a season at Oracle Park, which opened in 2000.
2023 SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS SCHEDULE SERIES
This series ends a string of 13 games against National League West foes to begin the season for the Dodgers, who only play four more series within the division through the end of July. The Dodgers and Giants meet for the first time in 2023, with the longtime rivals playing a three-game series beginning Monday night at Oracle Park in San Francisco.
