MLB releases 2020 Schedule: Washington Nationals open season on July 23rd vs New York Yankees...

Reports that the Washington Nationals would be one of four teams playing on Opening Day for 2020’s MLB campaign on July 23rd came out a while back, but tonight MLB released the official, full schedule for the 60-game season.

The Nationals’ 2020 campaign does officially start on the 23rd, when they’re scheduled to host the New York Yankees at 7:08 PM ET in Nationals Park in the season opener, which is scheduled to air on ESPN.

The San Francisco Giants will visit the Los Angeles Dodgers in the West Coast opener three hours later.

The Nationals, the defending World Series champs, will start their 60-game schedule that night, but before that they have three exhibition games planned, one against Philadelphia and two with the Baltimore Orioles.

They have the first set up for July 18th at 6:05 PM EDT in D.C. before a home and home with the O’s on July 20th (in Oriole Park) and 21st (in Nationals Park). A majority of their games in Nationals Park this season start at 6:05, with 12:35 starts for a number of the Sunday games, as opposed to the usual 1:35 in previous seasons.

The Nationals play NL and AL East opponents in the 60 games, with three against the Yanks to start, then a four-game home and home with the Toronto Blue Jays (July 27-30), and their first of 10 games with the division rival Marlins is scheduled for July 31st in Miami.

There are six total games with their regional rivals from Baltimore on the schedule as well, and they travel to New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Boston in the month of August, with trips to Philly, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and Miami in September before the season wraps up with four games against the New York Mets at home in Washington (Sept. 24-27th).

Will they actually finish this season, which is, of course, happening during an ongoing pandemic?

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” GM Mike Rizzo told reporters this past weekend, when he spoke for the first time at Spring Training 2.0. “I know we’re going to do everything we can here in Washington, D.C. with the Nationals to fulfill all the protocols and start this season healthy, and like I said, we’ve got a good group of people here, and I think if you follow all the rules and your team takes care of themselves and they’re good caretakers of the Nationals I think that everything should be fine.”

Considering Rizzo released a statement this morning after the club canceled their planned workouts because of a delay in getting results of COVID-19 testing, things aren’t exactly off to a great start.

HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ FULL SCHEDULE FOR THE 2020 SEASON: