It appears the Phillies will open the season vs. the A’s

Major League Baseball’s Opening Day will be on April 7, but it appears that the Philadelphia Phillies will begin their 2022 season when they host the Oakland Athletics at 3:05 p.m. ET on April 8.

As Alex Coffey of The Philadelphia Inquirer noted, the Phillies have updated their schedule on their website:

Here's the Phillies' April schedule per their website. They will open against the A's on April 8 in CPB: pic.twitter.com/gLcxLKpKAl

— Alex Coffey (@byalexcoffey) March 11, 2022

The Phillies had been slated to begin the season with a three-game series in Houston against the Astros, before heading to D.C. to take on the Nationals for two games. Those games will still be played, but it’s not yet clear when.

This will mark the third time that the Phillies have begun the season by playing an American League team. In 2014, the Phillies defeated the Texas Rangers 14-10 on Opening Day in Arlington. A year later, the Boston Red Sox won 8-0 at Citizens Bank Park to begin the season.

Before they return to the city that they called home from 1901-1954, the A’s are expected to trade multiple star players away. A team that went 86-76 last year already allowed manager Bob Melvin to leave for the same job with the San Diego Padres, and additional cost cutting may mean that the team trades Matt Olson and/or Matt Chapman. Center fielder Ramón Laureano will continue to serve a PED suspension at the outset of the 2022 season, while both Starling Marte and Mark Canha left to sign with the New York Mets.

It’s safe to say we don’t really have any clue what Mark Kotsay’s lineup will look like in his first game as the manager of the A’s, but Joe Girardi’s lineup is very much in flux as well. The Phillies probably don’t yet employ their Opening Day center fielder and left fielder, and it’s unclear whether Rhys Hoskins will play first base or serve as the DH to open the season.

Aaron Nola has made four consecutive Opening Day starts for the Phillies, but one would think that last year’s National League Cy Young Award runner-up, Zack Wheeler, is the favorite to take the ball for the Phillies to begin the season.

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