The Saitama Seibu Lions 2018 season will start on Friday, March 30 against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. This will be the second year in a row the Lions go to Sapporo for Opening Day.
Here are links to the full schedule for the Seibu (西武) Lions:
March 2018
April 2018
May 2018
June 2018
July 2018
August 2018
September 2018
October 2018
Here are some bonus notes and irregular locations to the 2018 Seibu Lions schedule:
-For the first time in franchise history, the Lions will play a home game in Tokyo Dome on April 17 against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
-The Lions will be playing Kitakyushu (North Kyushu, closer to the water separating Yamaguchi and Fukuoka prefectures) on the road against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks on both April 24 and July 18. They played one game there last season.
-The Lions will be the road team in Tokyo Dome against the Fighters for a two games series from 5/15-5/16. Prior to 2004, the Fighters shared Tokyo Dome with the Giants before they moved to Sapporo. They did this last year and the Lions swept them.
-The Lions will play in Hotto Motto Stadium in Kobe against the Orix Buffaloes on 5/19, 5/20 and for a three game series from 9/11-9/13.
-On 5/29, the Lions will be playing the Hiroshima Carp in the city of Miyoshi, Hiroshima. While Hiroshima city itself is on the coast, Miyoshi is in the northwest direction and inland from the water. This will be the first chiho interleague game for the Lions since they played the Yomiuri Giants in Koriyama, Fukushima in 2015.
-On 7/5, the Lions will play the Fighters in Hakodate, the southern tip of Hokkaido. A shinkansen is capable of reaching Hakodate from the Tokyo if anyone in Kanto wanted to make that trip without a significantly long train ride. This breakthrough of reaching Hokkaido happened in 2016.
-The All-Star games will be played in Kyocera Dome and in Kumamoto prefecture on 7/16 and 7/17 respectively. It was announced last year that Kumamoto would host an All-Star game as relief for the 2016 earthquake that hit the area.
-For the third straight year, the Lions will be playing a home game in Maebashi, Gunma on 8/28 against the Rakuten Eagles.
-The traditional three home games in Omiya will be on 5/8 (vs Hawks), 6/12 (vs Swallows) and 8/29 (vs Rakuten). By playing in Omiya against the Eagles, they will go back to back chiho games like last year against the Fighters with Maebashi and Omiya in the same series.
-On 9/4 and 9/5, the Lions will be playing the Fighters in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. This city is two hours northeast of Sapporo and is the second largest in Hokkaido. It's known for a zoo.
-The regular season is scheduled to end in Sapporo on October 2.
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Keep in mind that any of these chiho games that are outdoors could be lost if it's rained out. In the event that happens, that game goes back to the traditional team's home stadium. Last year, the Lions only had two rained out games all season and both of them were chiho in Koriyama and Okinawa, respectively. The makeup games would be in September in Sendai against Rakuten and MetLife Dome against the Marines.
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