Major League Baseball’s season-opening Tokyo Series between the Dodgers and Cubs on March 18-19, which is likely to feature two Japanese-born pitchers facing off in their home country for the first time in a big-league game, will be broadcast on FOX/FS1.
Start times for both games are at 6 a.m. ET, with the March 18 game on FOX/FOX Deportes followed by the March 19 matchup on FS1/FOX Deportes (with both games streaming on the FOX Sports app). The contests will include some of Japan’s greatest MLB talents, from Shohei Ohtani and Seiya Suzuki to a number of pitching standouts.
While starting matchups are still being finalized, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shōta Imanaga and Rōki Sasaki could become the fourth, fifth and sixth Japanese players to pitch at the Tokyo Dome with their big-league clubs, joining Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima and Yusei Kikuchi, who started Ichiro Suzuki’s final big-league game at the venue in 2019. That was the last time MLB games were played at the Tokyo Dome.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has already said he expects Yamamoto to start the opener, with Sasaki a possibility for Game 2 if he is ready in his build-up to big-league action. If Sasaki makes that start, it will represent the top international free agent’s highly-anticipated MLB debut after signing with the Dodgers in January. Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Imanaga will pitch in Japan, though he has yet to reveal if it will be the Opening Day contest.
Ohtani is expected to be ready to hit but not pitch in time for the series opener following offseason shoulder surgery and a 2023 UCL repair. Ohtani, despite not pitching last season, still won his third MVP award in his first year with the Dodgers in a historic 50/50 season.
Imanaga and Yamamoto are both entering their second big-league seasons and coming off exceptional rookie campaigns. Imanaga went 15-3 with a 2.91 ERA in an All-Star season that saw him finish fourth in Rookie of the Year voting and fifth in Cy Young voting. Yamamoto, who became the highest-paid pitcher ever when he signed a 12-year, $325-million contract with the Dodgers before last season, was 7-2 with a 3.00 ERA during the regular season and allowed one run in 6.1 innings in Game 2 of the World Series.
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The 2025 Tokyo Series will mark the sixth time that MLB begins its regular season in Japan’s capital and the 25th anniversary of the first regular-season games in the country, which took place in 2000 between the Cubs and Mets.
It is also the second straight year that the Dodgers will begin their season in Asia, following last year’s Seoul Series in Korea against the Padres.
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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