5 Schedule Quirks for the 2026 Cubs Season

The Chicago Cubs released their 2026 regular season schedule on Tuesday and there are certainly some quirks to point out. First, here are some of the highlights that the Cubs featured in their press release.

“The Cubs have three seven-game homestands in 2026—April 17 – 23, May 1 – 7 and August 28 – September 3—marking the longest homestands of the season. The Cubs will have one, three-city road trip in 2026 taking them to Texas (May 8 – 10), Atlanta (May 12 – 14) and Chicago-AL (May 15 – 17)."

So, the Cubs will only have one, three-city road trip in 2026, but it's really only two. The Cubs have three games apiece against the Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves in the middle of May before returning to Chicago for a weekend series against the White Sox. So yeah, that's technically nine straight road games for the Cubs, but only six of those will be away from Chicago.

"In addition to the home games against the White Sox, the Cubs interleague schedule includes hosting the Los Angeles Angels (March 30 – April 1), Houston Astros (May 22-24), the Athletics (June 2 – 4), Toronto Blue Jays (June 19 – 21), Minnesota Twins (July 17 – 19), Detroit Tigers (July 20 – 22) and New York Yankees (July 31 – August 2)."

Interleague play has lost its novelty as it has become the norm in MLB with balanced schedules. However, it still looks a little odd that the Cubs will end their 2026 regular season with a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox on the road. That series against the Red Sox is also the only one against an American League team for the Cubs during the month of September.

"The Cubs are scheduled to host two holiday games in 2026 at Wrigley Field: Father’s Day, June 12 vs. Toronto, and Independence Day, July 4 vs. St. Louis.”

The interesting part of that 4th of July series against the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field is that it marks the first home series for the Cubs against their arch rivals in 2026. It's nothing necessarily new, but ever since MLB changed to only 13 games against division opponents, you see long stretches of time between rivals playing against each other throughout the year. Of course, that also leads into parts of the schedule where division rivals meet up a bunch in a short period of time. That brings us to the next schedule quirk for the 2026 Cubs.

7 games vs. Brewers in final month of regular season

In 2025, the Cubs have 10 division games in September, but none against the Milwaukee Brewers. That will change next year as the Cubs have 12 scheduled games against division rivals in the final month of the regular season, which includes seven games against the Brewers. Who knows, maybe we see another five-game series at Wrigley Field between the Cubs and Brewers if there's a postponed contest earlier in the 2026 season.

Cold-weather games in April

Speaking of potential postponed games, the Cubs will have Opening Day at Wrigley Field on March 26, against the Washington Nationals. That series is followed by another home series against the Los Angeles Angels. Out of their first 25 games of the season the Cubs will play 22 of them in cold-weather cities, which include 16 in Chicago at Wrigley Field. The other two road series' in cold-weather cities will be against the Cleveland Guardians and Philadelphia Phillies in April.

So yeah, we'll probably see at least a handful of bad-weather games for the 2026 Cubs in the first four weeks of the season. By comparison, this year the Cubs played 18 of their first 21 games away from cold weather.

See the full schedule in the link below.