2020 Nippon Professional Baseball season


The 2020 Nippon Professional Baseball season is the 71st season since Nippon Professional Baseball was reorganized in 1950. There are 12 NPB teams, split evenly between the Central League and Pacific League.

Season schedule

The 2020 season was originally scheduled to begin on 20 March, with a break from 21 July to 13 August, for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. On 26 February 2020, the league announced that its remaining spring training games would be held without fans in attendance, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. With health related precautions in place, the media was allowed into some ballparks. Following another league meeting on 9 March, commissioner Atsushi Saito stated that the 2020 season would be postponed until April. Saito also said that the league aimed to retain a full regular season schedule of 143 games. This announcement marked the first time since 2011 that a Nippon Professional Baseball season was delayed.
On 18 April, the league announced that it would remain delayed indefinitely through the entirety of May, with the 18-game interleague schedule removed to accommodate a 125-game schedule. The delay of the 2020 Olympics meant that the three-week Olympic break would no longer be needed. Therefore, it was removed from the schedule. Before the league began play, the 2020 season was shortened to 120 games, and scheduled to end on 7 November.
With the lifting of states of emergency over major Japanese cities, NPB announced that it would begin its regular season on 19 June behind closed doors. "Warm-up" games began 26 May. All twelve NPB teams played on as scheduled on 19 June. On 10 July NPB began allowing a limited number of fans to attend games, with plans to further ease restrictions in the near future.

Regular season standings

Through games played on 1 August 2020.