Major League Baseball will return to Mexico City in 2026 with a two-game series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres, restoring a key stop on the league’s international slate after a one-year hiatus.
The National League West rivals will meet April 25-26 at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, with the Diamondbacks designated as the home team and sacrificing two dates at Chase Field in Phoenix.
See you in April, Mexico City!
We’re taking on the Padres in the Mexico City Series at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú. pic.twitter.com/h8dn9ckAHB
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) December 10, 2025
Confirmed on Wednesday, the two games are part of MLB’s World Tour and will mark the third regular-season visit to Mexico’s capital, following the San Diego Padres–San Francisco Giants series in 2023 and the Houston Astros–Colorado Rockies series in 2024.
Tickets are scheduled to go on sale to the general public Jan. 19 through Ticketmaster, with more information to be posted at MLB.com/mexico.
There were no regular-season games in Mexico City in 2025 after MLB dropped plans there and in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when arrangements that made financial and logistical sense could not be finalized.
The cancellations followed a broader reassessment of the World Tour calendar, such as discussions about a potential game in Paris.
Instead, MLB leaned on its 2025 regular-season opening series at the Tokyo Dome, between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs, before circling back to Mexico City for 2026.
As of now, the new Diamondbacks-Padres matchup is MLB’s only regular-season international series for 2026, and it’s being framed as a restart of the Mexico City Series concept rather than a one-off.
For the Padres, the trip is a return to a city where they helped inaugurate regular-season baseball in 2023 with a high-scoring, home-run-heavy series against the Giants at the Harp Helú stadium, which is 2,239 meters (7,349 feet) above sea level.
In the first of the two games, a wild 16-11 win for the Padres, the teams blasted 11 home runs in a stadium that sits more than 2,100 feet higher than the highest-elevation MLB stadium, Denver’s Coors Field, a reputed “launching pad.”
That weekend also deepened ties with the Padres’ cross-border fan base, with third baseman Manny Machado telling the San Diego Union-Tribune, “I think Mexico has been a big part of our culture, our identity in San Diego. … I wish we had more time [in Mexico City]. It’s special.”
The Diamondbacks and Padres will face off in the Mexico City Series on April 25-26 pic.twitter.com/I2vV7G93Cr
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) December 10, 2025
Before now, Mexico has hosted seven MLB regular season series: five in Monterrey and two in Mexico City.
Earlier this year, MLB staged two spring training games in Mexico, with the Boston Red Sox traveling south to play the Monterrey Sultanes in late March.
A year earlier, the New York Yankees visited Mexico City for the first time since 1968 for a two-game exhibition series against the capital-based Diablos Rojos. The home team won both games before two sellout crowds of over 20,600 — with tickets for both games selling out in less than an hour.
Similarly, there will be another U.S.-Mexico exhibition game coming up in 2026: the San Francisco Giants will host the Sultanes March 23-24 and unveil a new Gigantes uniform during the series.
With reports from MLB.com, Mediotiempo, Infobae and Arizona Republic
