MEXICO CITY – For the third time in four years, Major League Baseball has brought its MLB World Tour to Mexico, with the two-game Mexico City Series between the Padres and Diamondbacks set for Saturday and Sunday at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú.
Three years ago, the Padres and Giants became the first two teams to play regular-season games in Mexico City, after MLB had held series in Monterrey in 1996, 1999, 2018 and 2019. The 2023 series, a sweep by San Diego over San Francisco, was followed the next year by a two-game sweep by the Astros against the Rockies.
The first two Mexico City Series at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, which opened in 2019 with a capacity of just over 20,000, drew a total of 79,019 fans. With the Padres – a club that will be playing its fourth regular-season series in Mexico – facing the Diamondbacks, who have staged multiple exhibition games in Arizona’s neighboring Mexican state of Sonora and also in Monterrey in 2019, expectations are once again high for the two-game set.
“We have some amazing fans in Mexico, and specifically Mexico City,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said last week. “Those fans who support us, I wish they knew how much we appreciate them.”
Both the D-backs and Padres, playing in Phoenix and San Diego, respectively, have an ample base of Mexican and Mexican-American fans.
“When they come into [Chase Field] on their special nights during the year, there’s no louder crowd,” Lovullo said. “So, for us to go down there and celebrate with them and visit them in their home city means a lot to this organization. I think [team president] Derrick [Hall] has done a great job of cultivating that relationship and hopefully it will continue to blossom.”
Baseball in Mexico has been riding a wave of momentum since the national team reached the semifinals of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, just a month and a half before the first Mexico City Series. That enthusiasm reached an apex last year for the club that calls Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú home, Diablos Rojos del México. For the 2025 Liga Mexicana de Béisbol (LMB) season, the team broke a 58-year attendance record with 592,153 fans in 41 home dates, eclipsing the 1967 mark of 536,743 which was set in 63 home dates in a stadium with a capacity for roughly 5,000 more spectators.
“I expect them to be loud, very enthusiastic,” D-backs right-hander Brandon Pfaadt said of the fans in Mexico City. “I think it’s a great opportunity to get in front of new fans and for us to travel and see new places.”
ANOTHER HOME RUN BARRAGE ON TAP?
One of the main talking points after the first Mexico City Series in 2023 was how the ball carried in a stadium with more or less standard dimensions in the outfield – 410 to dead center, 375 in the alleys and 332 down each line – combined with a Mexico City altitude of approximately 7,350 feet above sea level, over 2,000 feet higher than Denver and its famously hitter-friendly Coors Field.
In the first Mexico City Series game, the Giants and Padres set a Major League record with 10 different players hitting home runs, resulting in 11 total for the game. Seven of those were 440 feet or more, and four were 450 or more, in each instance a record in the Statcast Era (since 2015) for one game.
Four more balls flew out of the park the next day for a total of 15 in the two-game series.
In the Houston-Colorado series the following year, the teams combined to hit six round-trippers in their two contests.
“That first game was crazy – a lot of runs,” said Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who hit a 455-foot shot in that first contest in 2023, a 16-11 win for San Diego. “The second game wasn't that homer [heavy], but it was great. It was fun”.
Germán Márquez is in line to start Saturday’s game for the Padres. The right-hander pitched his first 10 big league seasons in Colorado, registering 31 wins in his home ballpark of Coors Field from 2016 to 2025.
“There is an altitude over there. It's like here [in Colorado], so I feel like I need to do the same work that I did here,” Márquez said during San Diego’s mid-week series against the Rockies in Denver. “I'm going to keep throwing my game and hitting my spots.”
A CHANCE TO PLAY IN FRONT OF NEW CROWDS
The MLB World Tour always presents an opportunity to see live games for countless fans who otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to do so. And when it comes to games in Latin America, it’s a unique opportunity for Major Leaguers from the region to play in front of a fan base with a shared culture and language.
“It’s really important, since those are our roots,” said D-backs infielder Ildemaro Vargas, who hails from Venezuela. “So, I feel really happy to go to Mexico and represent the D-backs in a Latin American country.”
Games played in Latin American nations also make players from the region long for MLB regular-season action in their own homelands.
“It’s going to be really exciting,” said D-backs shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, from the Dominican Republic. “It’s going to be incredible. We should have a moment like that in Santo Domingo. But I think it’s a chance that we Latin American players have to support each other.”
Added Vargas: “It would be spectacular to see Venezuela also being a part of [international games].”
That sentiment permeates among their U.S.-born peers.
“We have a lot of Latin guys on our team, which I think is great to get in front of other crowds; not necessarily where they’re from, but same language and everything,” Pfaadt said. “So, I think it’s great to be able to branch out, outside of Phoenix, outside of [the United States], to get in front of different crowds and I’m expecting them to be as loud as ever.”