Major League Baseball once again returns to Montreal this weekend. The Blue Jays and Red Sox will play a pair of exhibition games at Olympic Stadium, with Friday’s game at 7:05 p.m. ET and Saturday’s contest at 1:05 p.m. Both games are on MLB.TV.

The pending baseball season, the Mets’ 55th and the 113th for the Yankees, ends with a 6, and that portends something special happening. The big city is all but guaranteed an extraordinary occurrence involving at least one of its two big league franchises because of the calendar.

Manager Pete Mackanin on Thursday said the Phillies will wait until the last possible moment to finalize their Opening Day roster.

The Brewers placed three players on the 15-day disabled list Thursday, chief among them lefty reliever Sean Nolin. According to manager Craig Counsell, an MRI revealed a UCL injury in Nolin’s left elbow, and the outlook isn’t positive.

Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon said the first sight of the Mets on Thursday since losing the NLCS last fall doesn’t get his team’s ‘blood boiling.’

Rehabbing a shoulder injury, Lance McCullers threw live batting practice at the Astros’ Spring Training home in Kissimmee, Fla. Even though he won’t be on the active roster, he will be in New York on Monday when the Astros open the season against the Yankees.

Given the oddity of his current opportunity, it was only fitting that Drew Stubbs’ first official day with the Braves’ organization began with a cross-country flight, followed by extra batting practice before his two-hour drive to Sarasota to begin what is essentially a three-day audition for a spot on Atlanta’s Opening Day roster.

Jeremy Hazelbaker carried his suit into the visitors’ clubhouse at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Thursday unsure whether he’d be wearing it out or packing it back up. With that suit hanging in his locker, Hazelbaker went out and capped a standout spring with a three-run homer and a two-hit game in the Cardinals’ 9-1 win over the Yankees. And afterward, he learned he had made the team.

J.D. Martinez’s three-homer game led a power onslaught against former Tigers prospect turned Yankee Chad Green, sending Detroit to a 10-6 win Thursday afternoon at Joker Marchant Stadium.

Cubs slugger Kris Bryant returned to his native Las Vegas on Thursday — and did so a more polished player than he was a year ago at this time.

Las Vegas native Kris Bryant knocked in the go-ahead run as part of a three-run fifth inning Thursday as the Cubs topped the Mets, 5-1.

Justin Verlander used to threaten his younger brother, Ben, about what would happen if they ever faced each other. “I’ve always told him my whole life I’m going to hit him,” he joked. Instead, it was the other way around, with the younger Verlander getting big brother for a home run Thursday in a Minor League game.

During the fifth inning of the Twins’ 7-4 win over the Red Sox in their Grapefruit League finale on Thursday, center fielder Byron Buxton demonstrated why he’s listed as Minnesota’s top prospect and the No. 2 prospect in all of baseball.

Baltimore’s Jonathan Schoop hit the third-longest home run measured by Statcast in 2015, and no one put more swings on pitches in the zone. It’s not hard at all to see him being baseball’s top power-hitting second baseman in 2016.

Masahiro Tanaka will have the honor of serving as the Yankees’ Opening Day starter for the second consecutive season, manager Joe Girardi announced on Thursday.

The roar for David Ortiz cut through the humid afternoon air like a blade through warm butter, gaining strength as a favorite son rounded the bases at a familiar site for the final time.

Edwin Encarnacion has declared himself ready to go for Opening Day and said that he felt “100 percent healthy” after making six plate appearances in a Minor League game Thursday afternoon.