The Chicago Cubs have made no secret of their desire to be playing in the playoffs in 2025.

They’ll face a stiff test right out of the chute.

The Cubs’ March/April slate is the hardest month any team faces, according to a strength of schedule analysis compiled by a Twitter/X user, @christmasdust.

The analysis averaged out opponents’ projected win percentage by averaging the predictions of three projection sites, PECOTA, FanGraphs and Davenport. The combined winning percentage for Cubs’ opponents in March and April is .546, ahead of the Angels’ July stretch (.540).  

Following the Tokyo Series against the Dodgers, the Cubs open their domestic slate against the Diamondbacks, who scored the most runs in baseball last year and are projected to win 87 games and have a 63-percent shot at making the playoffs, per PECOTA.

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The Cubs travel to Sacramento to take on the A’s, who were an improved team in the second half of 2024 and finished the second half at .500. They return home to take on the Padres – a playoff team in 2024 projected at 85 wins – and Rangers, the 2023 World Series champions.

That’s followed by a West Coast trip for six games against the Dodgers and Padres, before returning home for an eight-game homestand against the Diamondbacks (three games), Dodgers (two games) and another 2024 playoff team in the Phillies (three games). The Cubs close out April with a trip to Pittsburgh.

Talk about daunting – at least from an outsider’s perspective.

“Baseball’s so weird,” Cubs pitcher Jameson Taillon said on a recent episode of the Cubs Weekly Podcast. “Just, individually, I usually have some of my worst starts against the worst-record teams in baseball. Last year, two of my worst starts of the year were against the White Sox.

“It’s hard to look too much into that. You never know. Last year, we played the Astros in April, and they were struggling. It just matters when you catch teams and what teams get hot. If you’re playing the worst team in baseball when they’re hot, they’ll play like the freaking Dodgers.”

To Taillon’s point, last season, he allowed 10 earned runs on 19 hits in two starts (10 innings) against the White Sox, who had a 121-loss season. As a team, the Cubs went a combined 8-4 against the Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks and Astros in April as they finished March and April with an 18-12 record.

That was followed by a difficult May and June stretch, where they went 21-34, essentially torpedoing their season. It was the second year in a row that a late spring stretch had them playing catch up. In 2023, their 10-18 May (and 2-5 start to June) sunk them to 10 games under .500 and had them playing catchup the rest of the season.

After their April start, though, the Cubs face a May schedule that is the easiest month for any team, with an expected, combined winning percentage of .446 for their opponents. That month, they face just two teams that made the playoffs last season – the Brewers on May 2-4 and the Mets on May 9-11. The rest of the slate features rebuilding clubs (six against the Marlins, three against the Rockies and three against the White Sox) and teams with outside playoff hopes (three against the Giants and five against the Reds).

That could be the time for the Cubs to make up for their difficult open to the season. And they’ll hope it’s a better month than the last two seasons.