On Monday, first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino and third baseman Maikel Garcia were reinstated to the 40-man roster from the injured list after their rehab assignments.
Garcia has been sidelined since June 23 and missed 46 games with a left-hand muscle strain. Josh Rojas and Nick Loftin have replaced him at third, where Garcia has hit .261 with three homers and 30 RBIs in 268 at-bats this season.
Pasquantino, meanwhile, is returning from his second stint on the injured list this season. He’s been out since July 28. He was plagued with right wrist soreness, which came weeks after a right hamate surgery (on a small bone in the hand) that cost him nearly four weeks of action.
Anne Rogers writes about the return of those two.
“It’s like Opening Day,” Garcia said. “We’re just missing [second baseman Jonathan] India. But I feel like everybody’s on the field. We’re missing the pitchers. But it feels like we have the whole lineup back. We need to play good and win some games.”
Both hitters played on rehab assignments last week, but Pasquantino only logged 16 at-bats in Triple-A, while Garcia recorded 10 at-bats in Double-A. They were using the rehab games more to make sure they felt healthy before, during and after each game. As soon as they were ready, they wanted to get back to the big leagues and get the at-bats here as the season enters its final stretch, even if their workloads will be monitored.
“I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, right?” Quatraro said. “It’s nice to put them in there today. We want to keep them in there. We want to keep everybody healthy. But there’s no question we’re trying to play well down the stretch here. We’re trying to continue to build on the progress that some of the guys have made individually, and doing that as a team – to have those back – we think that gives us a good chance.”
The Kansas City government will put out their funding proposal for the Royals downtown stadium.
Kansas City is formally proposing to offer $600 million in funding to help pay for a new Royals ballpark and team offices in the Crown Center area. That includes $90 million in infrastructure funding, with the rest to be paid through “legally available” sources, including bonds and grants.
Sources for funding to pay back the bonds would be expected to include economic activity taxes generated by the project, a special 1% sales tax in the project area, restaurant tax revenue, parking revenue, tax increment financing through the state, possibly available tax revenue from related commercial and residential development and any other “legally-available” sources.
The team would have “no obligation” to repay or support the city bonds. While the city cannot “legally commit” to provide funding for debt service in future years, the proposal says, the city would intend to seek funds for bond repayment every year — as not paying them would harm the city’s credit rating. The numbers are outlined in a proposed funding agreement that the city’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee is expected to consider on Tuesday.
David Lesky wrote about Noah Cameron’s near no-no.
But what I think is fascinating about this start for Cameron is that he wasn’t really in the zone. His zone rate of 47 percent was fine, but not what we’ve seen from him in the past. He only had 15 first-pitch strikes out of 29 batters. But it worked. Some of that is that the Angels offense just isn’t very good, but some of it is that he was just excellent. And oh so close to a no-hitter. The only thing between him and immortality was a 65.8 MPH jam shot over shortstop. On one hand, that’s frustrating. On the other, the ball had an xBA of .940, so it was destined to be a hit.
But it was an impressive game. And I loved how he ended it too. He struck out the side in the eighth, using three different pitches to get the three strikeouts. He got a pretty lazy flyout to start the ninth before a relatively easy groundout for the second out. He was 3-0 on Trout with two outs, and you started to wonder if he would get to finish it at that point. But he threw a great pitch on 3-0. Then he threw what I thought was a sort of dangerous cutter on 3-1 for another strike. Trout fouled off the next cutter, but then Cameron threw a gorgeous changeup to get him to end the game and the series.
Royals reliever Eli Morgan elected free agency after being DFA’ed.
Though he hasn’t fared all that well in sparse major league work this season, Morgan has a 1.40 ERA in 25 2/3 Triple-A innings. The 5’10” righty has punched out 32.4% of his opponents there, albeit against a 13.9% walk rate. His once-excellent command had taken a step back since those elbow and shoulder issues in 2024, and this year’s average four-seamer is down about a mile per hour from the 92.3 at which he sat in ’22-’24.
MLB mothership updated their farm rankings.
19. Kansas City Royals
2026 preseason rank: 21
2025 midseason rank: 25
2025 preseason rank: 23
2024 midseason rank: 25Top 100 prospects: Kendry Chourio, RHP (No. 54); Josh Hammond, SS/3B (No. 70); Angeibel Gomez, OF (No. 84)
All three Top 100 prospects above are 19 or younger, and they could become mainstays in that upper echelon for a few more years yet. Gomez, in particular, has a rocket ship attached to his name with a strong pro debut in the Dominican Summer League, and his first stateside campaign will be highly anticipated in 2027. Despite having the sixth overall pick, the Royals went for bulk in this year’s Draft, signing Zion Rose for below slot in the first round and getting Jack Slightom (second round), Dominic Battista (fourth), Dylan Vigue (seventh) and Camden Johnson (ninth) on overslot deals later in the process. Time will tell if that was the best strategy. In the meantime, left-handers David Shields and Justin Lamkin and catchers Blake Mitchell and Ramon Ramirez represent that next tier of Royals pushing to get K.C. another Top 100 talent.
Kevin O’Brien at Royals Keep wrote about Noah Cameron’s outing.
Caleb Moody at Kings of Kauffman isn’t happy with the Royals’ post-deadline approach with some of their players. He also covered Noah Cameron’s awesome outing.
MLB owners unanimously approved the Padres sale to new owners.
Old friends – The Rockies DFA’ed Michael Lorenzen, and the Diamondbacks DFA’ed Andrew Hoffmann.
The Diamondbacks placed Ketel Marte on the restricted list for missing Monday’s game.
Dansby Swanson will be out at least four weeks with an oblique strain.
Jeanie Buss is fighting the sale of the Buss family stake of the Lakers.
LIV Golf cancels their season-ending team tournament, yet another signal the organization is failing.
Ohio State takes the top spot in the preseason AP Top 25 college football rankings.
The Greatest Showman movie is now a West End-bound stage musical.
Your song of the day is Above & Beyond and Victoria Horn with When You Believe.
