Nearly four months after the 2020 Major League Baseball season was expected to start before the coronavirus pandemic shut down all major professional sports, the league reportedly has its sights set on an enticing Opening Day redux. The defending World Series champion Washington Nationals will host the New York Yankees on July 23 to launch what should be a weird, unpredictable 60-game season, The New York Post reports.
The Post notes that although the MLB Players' Union signed off on details about the new, regionally-based schedule (the two squads wouldn't have played this year at all under normal circumstances, let alone Opening Day), the product isn't finalized yet, so there's a chance things could change between now and then. Of course, it goes without saying that it's still unclear if play will even be possible since several states including California, Florida, and Texas — all of which have multiple MLB teams — have seen cases rise in recent weeks.
But if all does go according to plan, a Yankees-Nationals showdown isn't a bad way to get baseball up and rolling again. In that scenario, it's all but certain the Nationals would run out their veteran ace Max Scherzer against the Yankees' big ticket free agent acquisition Gerrit Cole, who faced Washington in the World Series last year as a member of the Houston Astros. It'll likely be a bittersweet moment for Nationals fans, however; they'll no doubt be excited to see their team back on their field, but the coronavirus will prevent them from attending and witnessing the raising of a World Series banner. Read more at The New York Post.
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