The second half of the Red Sox season begins Friday with a three-game visit to the Chicago Cubs, but for those who prefer to look even further down the road, Major League Baseball dropped the 2024 schedule on Thursday.
With help from Jack and Charlie, brothers and young Red Sox fans who went viral on social media earlier in the season when the broadcast showed Charlie receiving a foul ball and immediately throwing it back onto the field, making his brother to cry, the Red Sox unveiled next year’s road map.
The spring training schedule isn’t finalized, but the Red Sox will make a special preseason trip to the Dominican Republic, where they’ll play a pair of exhibition games with the Tampa Bay Rays.
All 30 teams will share the same Opening Day, Thursday March 28, which joins 2019 as the earliest traditional season openers in Major League history. As such, it makes sense that the Red Sox begin their campaign with a trip out west, rather than braving the frigid conditions at Fenway Park that time of year. Not to worry, it’s more than likely that temperatures will still be less than balmy at the home opener on Tuesday, April 9.
Like 2019, the Red Sox will open the season in Seattle. After four games against the Mariners and three in Oakland, they’ll have their first day off on April 4. The road trip concludes with a three-game series with the Angels in Anaheim and a day off on Monday, April 8.
Hopefully, next year’s trip goes better than 2019, when the defending champions began the season 3-8 against Seattle, Oakland, and Arizona before coming home for their ring ceremony.
In 2024, the Red Sox’s traditional mid-morning Patriots Day/Marathon Monday game falls on April 15, MLB’s Jackie Robinson Day. All 30 teams will play in the customary No. 42 in honor of the debut that broke baseball’s color barrier.
The league will commemorate Lou Gehrig Day on June 2 and Roberto Clemente Day on September 15 with full slates of games.
Likewise for the Fourth of July; the Red Sox will be playing a series finale in Miami.
The All-Star Break will be July 15-17, with the All-Star Game set for Tuesday, July 16 at Globe Life Field, the new home of the Texas Rangers. (The Red Sox also have the day off on July 18.)
The Red Sox will be at home on Mother’s Day (May 12 vs. Nationals) and Father’s Day (June 16 vs. Yankees).
The regular season concludes at Fenway on September 29.
The more balanced schedule MLB introduced this year will continue in 2024.
Fenway Park will host eight National League teams, several of which haven’t played in Boston in over half a decade.
The Chicago Cubs will be the first to arrive, making their first Fenway appearance since 2017 on April 26-28. After a day off on Monday, April 29, the San Francisco Giants come to town for three games (April 30-May 2), followed by the Washington Nationals (May 10-12), Milwaukee Brewers (May 24-26), Atlanta Braves (June 4-5), and Philadelphia Phillies (June 11-13).
Most notably, the San Diego Padres come to town on June 28, 2024, marking the SoCal squad’s first visit since 2013, and Xander Bogaerts’ first time playing at Fenway in another team’s uniform. Fittingly, 2013 was Bogaerts’ rookie season; he made his major league debut on August 20 of that year, and played ten seasons, the most games at shortstop in franchise history, and won two World Series before becoming a free agent last fall and signing an 11-year deal with the Padres.
That series also marks the return of Don Orsillo, the beloved former Red Sox broadcaster who found a new home on in the Padres booth. The Massachusetts native has worked the occasional TBS or FOX national broadcast at Fenway since the Red Sox dropped him in 2015, but this will be his first time there with his new club.
Fenway will only see one inter-league series in the second half. August 23-25 will be the Arizona Diamondbacks’ first time in Boston since 2016.
The Red Sox will also visit several NL teams, beginning with the Pittsburgh Pirates from April 19-21. They’ll travel to Atlanta (May 7-8), St. Louis (May 17-19), Cincinnati (June 21-23), Miami (July 2-4), Los Angeles (July 19-21), Colorado (July 22-24), and New York (September 2-4).
They Red Sox will see Christian Vázquez in Minnesota at the beginning of May (3-5), but the Twins don’t come to Boston until September 20-22.
After Bogaerts’ visit, the Red Sox will be on Mookie Betts’ new home turf for the first time since trading him to the Dodgers in February 2020. They begin the second half with a trip to Los Angeles (July 19-21) and Colorado (July 22-24).
All meetings with Nathan Eovaldi and the Rangers will happen within the first two weeks of August, first in Texas (August 2-4), then at Fenway (August 12-14).
In order to accommodate the increase in inter-league play, divisional rivalries will continue to be reduced from the previous 19-game season series, to 13 games. The Red Sox will play seven games (across two series) each at Yankee Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
Once again, the Red Sox and Yankees won’t face off until months into the season. The Yankees first come to Fenway the weekend of June 14-16, and the Red Sox will return the visit July 5-7 and September 12-15. The Yankees won’t be back at Fenway after July 26-28.
That is, unless the rivalry ends up meeting in the postseason.
Speaking of postseasons, 2024 marks 20 years since the historic 2004 Red Sox season and triumphant end to the Curse of the Bambino. Celebrations and commemorations are sure to feature heavily throughout the year.
Notable dates in the curse-busting campaign include:
June 24: Jason Varitek and Alex Rodriguez’s brawl.
June 31: At the deadline, the Red Sox make a four-team trade, sending Nomar Garciaparra to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Orlando Cabrera (Montreal Expos) and Doug Mientkiewicz (Minnesota Twins), and acquire Dave Roberts from the Los Angeles Dodgers.
October 17-20: Games 4-7 of Boston’s historic one-of-a-kind ALCS comeback over the Yankees. No other team in MLB history has come back from a three-game deficit to win a seven-game series.
October 27: The Red Sox win Game 4 of the World Series, ending their 86-year championship drought.