Opening Day is just around the corner, and that means it’s time to mark your calendars.
Beginning the season with a divisional gauntlet, there’s no shortage of interesting story lines to follow on the Giants’ schedule this season. They’ll welcome their past two failed free agent pursuits to Oracle Park, honor Willie Mays at the oldest ballpark in America and potentially put the Bay Bridge series to bed.
Here’s a look at the season ahead:
April 5-7 vs. San Diego Padres
The Giants leave the West Coast just once during the first month of the season, starting with 10 straight games against NL West foes that culminates in the season-opening home stand against the Padres, which comes with all sorts of subplots: new manager Bob Melvin welcoming his old team to his new city; the possibility of Jung Hoo Lee stepping into the batter’s box against his brother in law, Padres reliever Woo-Suk Go; the start of a rivalry, or the seeds of a future partnership, between Lee and fellow Korean star Ha-Seong Kim. The possibility are endless, but one thing is for sure: The early sledding of the season will be primetime when it comes to divisional stakes, with 14 games against NL West opponents before the calendar turns to May.
April 15-17 at Miami Marlins
When the Giants fired Gabe Kapler, the former manager said he planned to take the year off and travel, potentially in a van from Canada to South America. In a twist of fate, his old friend and Rays teammate Peter Bendix reached out. Now leading the Marlins’ baseball operations, Bendix brought Kapler on board as an assistant general manager. The Giants and their new skipper will get a taste early in the season for how Kapler is adjusting to life in Miami.
April 30-May 2 at Boston Red Sox
Soon enough, a trip to Fenway Park won’t be so rare. Under the balanced schedule introduced last season, this begins a cycle of visiting every two years. But in the meantime, the black block-type, orange piping and road grays against the backdrop of the Green Monster remains a sight to behold. It will be the Giants’ fourth series ever at the historic ballpark, celebrating its 112th birthday in 2024, with only a few players remaining from their last visit in 2019.
May 13-15 vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
Entering this offseason, the Giants hoped Shohei Ohtani’s first game at Oracle Park in 2024 would be on April 5, the date of the home opener. Instead, after another failed free agent pursuit, it will be May 13, when the vaunted Dodgers’ make their first visit to San Francisco this season. He’ll be accompanied by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and, if recent years hold true, a swath of Dodger blue in the bleachers. Every one of the 13 rivalry games will take place before the trade deadline, with the season series wrapping up with a four-game set in Los Angeles at the end of July.
May 31-June 2 vs. New York Yankees
With visits from Ohtani and Aaron Judge in the span of three weeks, Giants fans will have an opportunity to let the free agents who spurned them the past two offseasons hear it. Perhaps tempers would have cooled and Judge would have been welcomed back to his native Northern California a year later had the Giants landed their superstar this offseason. But after finishing as the also-rans time and time again, there seems to be an angst of sorts emanating among at least a segment of the fan base, which they will have a prime chance to express to the perpetrators of it. The series is also the first of seven interleague matchups at Oracle Park, including visits from the Astros, Angels, Blue Jays, Twins, Tigers and White Sox.
June 7-9 at Texas Rangers
Bruce Bochy’s hand will weigh a little heavier when the Giants see him this season than when he made his return to Oracle Park last year. Fresh off adding a fourth World Series ring to his collection, Bochy more than proved the game hasn’t passed him by. This series is more than sentimental, though. The defending champs will pose a good midseason measuring stick. If things are going well, a few players could be back at Globe Life Park a month later for the 94th All-Star Game.
June 20-23 at St. Louis Cardinals (Birmingham, Alabama)
Say, hey! The modern-day Giants will take a trip back in time for the first game of their series at the Cardinals, traveling some 500 miles south of St. Louis to Rickwood Field, the oldest operating professional stadium in the country, where Willie Mays used to play in the Negro Leagues. The 10,800-capacity ballpark, which opened in 1910 and was home to the Birmingham Barons, is undergoing extensive renovations to accommodate the major-league clubs and their fans for the game, set to take place the day after Juneteenth and serve as a tribute to the Negro Leagues and Mays, a Birmingham native.
July 26-28 vs. Colorado Rockies
In the first home stand after the All-Star break, the Rockies visit Oracle Park for three days over the final weekend in July. But, in a new scheduling twist this year, they will squeeze in four games. The clubs will play two — and not because of weather — that Saturday, exactly 27 years after the Giants’ last scheduled double header, July 27, 1997 against the Pirates.
August 17-18 at Oakland A’s
The unfortunate, if not yet assured, reality is that the A’s could play elsewhere besides Oakland in 2025. With blueprints for a ballpark in Vegas and their lease at the Coliseum up after 2024, these could well be the final games of a 27-year Bay Bridge series, dating back to the start of interleague play. It’s been remarkably competitive — the A’s hold a four-game edge, 74-70 — and, let’s be honest, while the Giants have their shimmering waterfront ballpark, there’s nothing like a Coliseum tailgate. Don’t wait to appreciate it until it’s gone.
Sept. 3-5 vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
This three-game series against the defending National League champions kicks off a September docket that features six matchups apiece against the Diamondbacks and Padres, neither of whom they will have seen since the first month of the season besides a short trip to Arizona in June. Whether it factors in to the division or the wild card race, the stretch run sets up to be a challenging one for the Giants, with every September series against teams expected to contend for the postseason.
