NEW YORK — The San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants will play in the first regular-season Major League Baseball games in Mexico City next year, three seasons after the first scheduled matchup there was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
San Francisco and San Diego will play a two-game series at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú Béisbol next April 29-30, the commissioner’s office and players’ association said Wednesday. The Padres will be the home team in both games.
MLB had announced in December 2019 that San Diego and Arizona would play the following April 18-19 at the 20,000-capacity ballpark, which opened in March 2019. But the pandemic delayed Opening Day from March 26 to July 23 and caused the Mexico games to be canceled, along with a Chicago Cubs–St. Louis Cardinals series in London scheduled for June 13-14 and a three-game series between the New York Mets and Miami Marlins at San Juan, Puerto Rico, on April 28-30.
The Cubs-Cardinals series at London’s Olympic Stadium was rescheduled for next June 24-25.
Spring training games were played in Mexico City in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2016 at Fray Nano and Foro Sol.
San Diego has made three regular-season trips to Monterrey, Mexico, against the Mets (Aug. 16-18, 1996), Colorado Rockies (April 4, 1999) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (May 4-6, 2018).
These will be the Giants’ first games outside the U.S. and Canada.