Earlier starts on weeknights, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles highlight Cubs’ 2020 home schedule

Chris Sale and the Red Sox visit Wrigley Field in June next year for the first time since the concert-browned outfield showcase on a national TV broadcast in 2012. | Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

The Tampa Bay Rays return to Wrigley Field next July for the first time since 2014, Joe Maddon’s final season in Florida.

Whether he’ll be there as Cubs manager to greet them is only one of many subplots unveiled with the 2020 schedule released on Monday.

What will the Cubs look like when 2018 World Series champ Boston Red Sox play next June at Wrigley in Cubs president Theo Epstein’s fourth reunion with the Red Sox since leaving for Chicago after the 2011 season?

And can the Cubs draw a few more families with school-aged kids during the school-year portion of the schedule by moving up start times of weeknight games 25 minutes to 6:40 p.m.?

That’s the new start time next season for weeknight games before Memorial Day and after Labor Day.

The Cubs open their 2020 schedule with one series in Milwaukee before busing home for a March 30 home opener against Pittsburgh.

The Cubs opened their 2018 and 2019 schedules with lengthy road trips.

The June portion of the schedule if packed with storylines as the Cubs travel to London to play a two-game series against the Cardinals on June 13-14, return home and host the Red Sox the following weekend, June 19-21, and then travel to New York for a series against the Yankees on June 26-28

The Cubs also play a pair of two-game series against former bench coach Brandon Hyde’s Baltimore Orioles, in Baltimore in April and at Wrigley Field in June.

The Cubs’ interleague schedule also includes a trip to Toronto (Aug. 14-16) and the annual pair of crosstown series against the White Sox (July 7-8 at Guaranteed Rate Field and July 20-21 at Wrigley).