Baseball's traditional second half begins at 2:20 p.m. ET on Friday, with the Chicago Cubs hosting the Boston Red Sox at Wrigley Field. From there, all 30 teams are scheduled for a three-game weekend series, with those games concluding fantasy's "Week 16" in ESPN standard leagues. These three days will be tacked onto the seven days from July 7-13 into a singular scoring period.
The short weekend means that teams' fourth and fifth starters coming out of the All-Star break won't get to work until the following week. By "fourth or fifth starters," that merely means teams' selected order, not the skill level of the pitchers scheduled, as the Pittsburgh Pirates serve up a good example of shuffling the order to provide additional rest for their young ace, Paul Skenes. Skenes isn't scheduled to pitch during the second half's opening weekend.
As is often the case directly following the break, some rotations have yet to be announced. At publication time, only 13 teams had revealed any of their plans, and only 38 starting pitchers' initial assignments were known. Keep checking back here for updates right up until the Friday games begin.
Should Max Fried be able to make a start for the New York Yankees during the second half's opening weekend, he'll do so at Atlanta's Truist Park, which he called home from 2017 to '24. Fried has a 2.98 ERA in 73 career starts and six relief appearances there.
For fantasy managers in leagues that lump the July 18-20 weekend into a 10-day scoring period spanning from Friday, July 18, through Sunday, July 27, bear in mind that 10 teams are scheduled to play on all 10 days: Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Angels, St. Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays. The Athletics and Padres play all of those games on the road. The Pirates and Texas Rangers are scheduled for nine games, but all of them are at home.