Braves 2018 schedule released

For those of you just about ready to slam the book on 2017 — good news! The 2018 Atlanta Braves regular season schedule is out.

You can view the schedule in the usual MLB.com calendar format here.

Here are various highlights:

• Opening Day: March 29, at home, against the Phillies. The Braves didn’t start their first season at SunTrust Park at home, but that will change next season. They’ll play host to the Phillies for a three-game set, with a rare Sunday off-day at the conclusion of the series, in lieu of the interruption between the season’s first and second games, as has become standard in past years. This, weirdly, means no scheduled game on April 1.

• Opening up Coors Field for 2018: April 6. The Braves will help the Rockies open another season at Coors Field as their first road game. Will it be a blizzard once again?

• Interleague matchups. At Tampa Bay (May, two games), at Boston (May, three games, I will be attending), at Toronto (June, two games), versus the Orioles (June, three games), at New York (July, three games, including the 4th of July), versus the Blue Jays (July, two games), versus the Rays (August, two games), and versus the Red Sox (September, three games).

• Shortened West Coast road trips. The Braves will play the Padres and Dodgers in California in early June, and then the Diamondbacks and Giants in early September.

• Lots of Phillies early. The Braves play the Phillies nine times before April ends. And then, the Braves also end the season against the Phillies in Philadelphia, on September 30.

• Possibly brutal road trip. The Braves play three in St. Louis, three against the Yankees in New York, and then four against the Brewers in Milwaukee, with no breaks in between.

• September division drama. After September 14, the Braves play only one series against a non-division foe (the Cardinals). The last home game for the Braves will be September 23, also against the Phillies.

Beyond that, nothing looks particularly out of the ordinary. There are no egregiously long road trips or homestands, and the schedule generally features a pretty standard road trips and homestands of a couple of series in length each, with some three-series homestands mixed in. There is only one case where the Braves have a one-series homestand (hosting the Giants in May), or a one-series road trip (two in Toronto in June).

The schedule is road-skewed in the first half, as the Braves play three more contests away from Atlanta than they do at home before the All-Star Break, and make up for it in the season’s second half.

Tickets go on sale this Friday.