It’s no secret the Cubs’ start to the 2025 campaign was going to be a grind.

So far they have weathered the storm. They entered Friday night’s series opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-6 and have won three consecutive series.

[Justin Steele injury update: Latest on Cubs pitcher’s elbow, MRI results]

But we’re not even halfway through the month and things don’t ease up for the Cubs. Here’s a look at three facts that highlight the complex schedule to begin the year, as compiled by Marquee Sports Network researcher Chris Antonacci:

The Cubs are playing back-to-back series vs. the last two World Series champions

The Cubs completed a series victory over the 2023 World Series champion Texas Rangers at Wrigley Field and were rewarded with a three-game set against the 2024 champion Dodgers in Los Angeles.

No rest for the weary, eh?

Of course, this isn’t their first time playing the Dodgers, either. They dropped the two-game MLB Tokyo Series in mid-March to open the year but are 9-4 since then, and have hit their offensive groove. They lead the majors in runs scored (96) and plated 36 runs over their six-game homestand.

They’ll face a gauntlet against the Dodgers — Yoshinobu Yamamoto started Friday, rookie phenom Roki Sasaki takes the ball Saturday and Tyler Glasnow is slated for Sunday.

The last time the Cubs played back-to-back series against the last two World Series champions was in June 2005, when they took two out of three from the Boston Red Sox (2004) and dropped two of three to the then-Florida Marlins (2003) in a six-game stretch at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs have 14 games in April against teams that were in the playoffs in 2024

And that fact doesn’t tell the full story. They began the season with six games in March — two against Los Angeles and a four-game set against the Arizona Diamondbacks. When the calendar flips to May, they’ll play seven more games against the D-backs, who scored the most runs in baseball last year and missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker.

The Cubs will play the Dodgers and the San Diego Padres — arguably the two best teams in the National League in 2024 — 11 times in 19 days.

“There’s no question the month of April has very good teams on it,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said earlier in the week. “That’s just a fact. Everybody plays the same schedule, so that’s not daunting. It’s just we’re in that part of it. The only thing you can do about that is come out and play a good game.”

So far, so good.

The Cubs have traveled 15,724 air miles in about one month

Let’s break that down:

• 5,784 miles each way from Phoenix to Tokyo
• 634 miles from Phoenix to Sacramento
• 1,781 miles from Sacramento to Chicago
• 1,741 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles

Charter flights or not, that’s a whole lot of air time. The baseball season is rigorous — you’re facing a new team every three to four days — but mixing in nearly 16,000 miles in less than one month can be grueling for anyone.

But, as in April, the Cubs just need to weather the storm. They return from the West Coast next week and won’t travel further than New York through May. The benefit of this stretch is they have only one trip back West this season — a nine-game, 10-day visit to Anaheim, San Francisco and Colorado at the end of August.

If the Cubs can hover around .500 by the end of April, it should spell good results. Their March/April schedule is the toughest month any team will face by 2025 projected winning percentage, but their May slate is the easiest.