For a UK fan coming to Major League Baseball for the first time, the length of the season can be the biggest surprise. An MLB club does not play once a week. It plays almost every day for roughly six months, building a record across 162 regular-season games before the postseason begins. That volume gives the standings and late-season races their meaning.
The structure becomes much easier to follow once you separate MLB into three layers: league, division and playoff race. Each team belongs to one of two leagues, then one of three divisions inside that league. The schedule mixes frequent meetings with divisional opponents, games against the rest of the league and Interleague games against clubs from the other league.
How MLB is divided into leagues and divisions
MLB has 30 clubs, split evenly between the American League and National League. Each league has 15 teams and is divided into East, Central and West divisions, with five teams in each.
That creates six MLB divisions: AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central and NL West. A club’s division matters because it is competing directly for a division title, rather than simply trying to finish as high as possible across all 30 clubs.
Why the MLB regular season has 162 games
Each club plays 162 regular-season games. Compared with a 38-match Premier League season, following baseball requires a different mindset. One loss in April is rarely decisive. What matters is performance over months of repeated series, travel, injuries, pitching rotations and changing form.
The long season also explains why winning percentage appears so prominently in the standings. A 90-72 record means a club won 90 of its 162 games. Winning percentage is wins divided by games played, which allows fair comparisons when rainouts or scheduling differences mean teams have temporarily played different numbers of games.
How the MLB schedule is organised
MLB uses a balanced-schedule model in which every club plays all 29 other teams during the season. Balanced does not mean every opponent appears equally often. Division rivals still meet more frequently, preserving important rivalries while giving fans regular matchups across both leagues.
Under the current format, a club plays 52 games against the four opponents in its own division, with 13 games against each. It plays 62 more games against the other 10 teams in its own league. The remaining 48 are Interleague games against teams from the opposite league.
Prime Interleague rivals play six games against each other, usually as two three-game series, while a club plays three games against each of the other 14 teams from the opposite league. That gives regional matchups such as Yankees-Mets, Cubs-White Sox and Dodgers-Angels extra visibility even though those clubs are in different leagues.
Why teams play several games against the same opponent
Baseball is normally organised into series. Instead of travelling for one game and immediately leaving, clubs usually face the same opponent on consecutive days. Three-game series are common, although two-game and four-game sets also appear.
A practical way for a new UK fan to follow the season is to think in series rather than treating every result as decisive. If your team loses on Friday but wins on Saturday and Sunday, it has still won the series two games to one. Across 162 games, repeatedly winning series is a useful sign of consistent form.
How MLB standings work
Standings are primarily organised by division. Teams are ranked by wins, losses and winning percentage, with the division leader shown at the top. The “games behind” figure shows how far another club trails first place.
Imagine the leader is 60-40 and the second-place team is 57-43. The second club is three games behind. That gap can change quickly during a head-to-head series, which is one reason divisional games feel especially important late in the season.
It is also worth watching the Wild Card standings. Teams that do not win their division can still reach the postseason if they have one of the strongest remaining records in their league. This keeps more clubs involved as September approaches.
What teams are playing for
In each league, the three division winners qualify for the postseason, along with three Wild Card teams. That means six American League clubs and six National League clubs move on from the regular season.
Regular-season position still matters after qualification. The top two division winners in each league receive byes to the Division Series. The third division winner and the three Wild Card teams play best-of-three Wild Card Series, with the higher seed hosting the games.
A club that has already clinched a postseason place therefore still has reasons to chase wins. A stronger seed can mean avoiding the Wild Card round altogether or securing a more favourable postseason position. For a reader learning the sport in stages, useful follow-up topics include how MLB standings work, the MLB postseason format and basic baseball rules.
Why divisional rivalries still matter
The balanced schedule has increased the variety of opponents, but divisional games remain central to the baseball season format. Clubs play each division rival 13 times, so teams competing for the same title have repeated opportunities to affect one another’s records.
That helps sustain rivalries such as Yankees-Red Sox in the AL East, Cubs-Cardinals in the NL Central and Dodgers-Giants in the NL West. Even when one side is having a weaker season, these games can carry extra attention because of history, fan culture and their direct effect on the standings.
FAQ
Each MLB club plays 162 regular-season games. The schedule runs for roughly six months, normally from late March or early April until late September.
There are six divisions: East, Central and West in both the American League and National League. Each division contains five teams.
Yes. Under the balanced schedule, every club plays all 29 other MLB teams during the regular season, although divisional opponents are played more often than most others.
A division winner finishes first in one of MLB’s six divisions. A Wild Card team reaches the postseason without winning its division, based on having one of the best remaining records in its league.
Understanding the structure makes the season easier to follow
The MLB regular season looks complicated mainly because there are so many games. Once you know that 30 teams are split between two leagues and six divisions, the logic is straightforward. Clubs play 162 games, face every other MLB team, compete most directly with divisional rivals and build a record that determines their route into the postseason.
For a UK viewer, a simple approach is to follow one club, its division and the Wild Card table. You do not need to treat every game like a cup final. The appeal is watching hundreds of individual results gradually turn into meaningful pennant and playoff races by the end of September.
