Twins release 2019 season schedule

MLB released their full schedule for the 2019 season Wednesday, and just a cursory glance shows it will be a bit of a doozy for the Twins. The team will open the season at home in Minnesota against Cleveland on Thursday... March 28th. If that seems rather early in the year for the Twins to being playing baseball outside, that’s because it is — the Twins have never played an outside MLB game in Minnesota in March.

Because you are probably now wondering: the average high on March 28th in Minneapolis is 46 F degrees. The high temperature on March 28th this year was 52 F degrees, which actually isn’t that bad, considering the coldest game in Target Field history — a game played against the Mariners April 7th, 2018 — was only 27 F degrees.

Apparently the league scheduled the Twins to open the season at home to accommodate for the Final Four Tournament, which is being held at US Bank Stadium in early April. There’s going to be a butt-load of people in the cities and traffic and blah blah blah so they wanted to make sure the Twins were out of town then. So after the opening series against Cleveland, the Twins leave town and don’t return until April 12th.

I’m not sure why this “forced” the Twins to start the season at home, seeing as the home opener for Target Field’s inaugural season in 2010 was played on April 12th, but i don’t make schedules, and I’m sure there’s a lot of math and logistics going on here. Whatever.

Interleague Match-Ups

As far as interleague goes, the Twins will be facing off against NL East opponents in 2019. Trips include a three game weekend series in Philadelphia to face the Phillies and a two game stop in Queens to face the Mets during the team’s first road trip in early April. If being cold isn’t your thing, the Twins will also be heading out to Miami to play the Marlins July 30th through August 1st.

The Mets, Braves, and Nationals will be coming to Target Field in July, August, and September respectively. Of course, as always, the Twins will also face the Brewers, with two games in Minneapolis May 27th and 28th, and two games in Milwaukee on August 13th and 14th.

Game Start Times

According to Twins communications director Justin Morse, the team is also altering the regular start times for some games. Weekday night games in April, May, and September will not start at 6:40 pm CT, a half an hour earlier than the current regular start time of 7:10 pm CT. Sounds like a smart move to help more kids come to the games while school is in session, so I’m on board.

Road Trips?

If you’re the type of fan who likes to plan trips to follow the Twins on the road, it doesn’t look like there are too many exciting options in 2019. It should be relatively easy to watch the Twins in Philadelphia and then Queens, two places the team doesn’t often visit, but those games are very early in the season.

There are a couple other feasible road trip options for fans, but they aren’t very exciting. The Twins will be in Cleveland and then dead to Detroit from June 4th to June 9th if you are really aching to see those two places. The team will also be in Chicago followed and then Detroit from August 27th to September 2nd, covering Labor Day weekend. The Twins, obviously, visit those cities multiple times every season, though, so sort of a snooze fest.

Anything about the 2019 schedule stick out to you? What do you think?