TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays will begin next season on a lengthy road trip before returning home to a renovated Rogers Centre.
The Blue Jays released their schedule for the 2023 season on Wednesday. Canada's lone Major League Baseball team will open the season March 30 at St. Louis to kick off a 10-game road trip that will include series against the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Angels.
Toronto's home opener will be April 11 against the Detroit Tigers, and will be the Blue Jays' first chance to show off the first phase of a planned $300-million overhaul to the venerable Rogers Centre.
The club says the first phase will include replacing all of the seats in the 500 level, including removing entire sections altogether and replacing them with spaces for spectators to congregate.
The Blue Jays will play 46 interleague games in 2023, more than twice as many as to previous seasons. That includes home series against San Francisco (June 27-29), Arizona (July 14-16) and San Diego (July 18-20). The Blue Jays will see those teams for the first time since 2019.
Toronto will face American League East rivals New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays in April and May, then not seeing either team again until the end of the season. The Blue Jays close out the season at home against the Yankees (Sept. 26-28) and Tampa Bay (Sept. 29- Oct. 1).
Two 10-game homestands mark the longest of the season: May 12-21 against Atlanta, the Yankees and Baltimore, and Sept. 8-17 versus Kansas City, Texas and Boston.
A notable road series for the Jays comes July 21-23 in Seattle. That series traditionally attracts a large number of Jays supporters from Western Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 24, 2022.
The Canadian Press
