A couple of social media posts from yesterday
Indeed.
But then I saw this and did an “awwww”:
Let’s get this season started!
Addi Weakly at KSHB writes about some new innovations for the
Royals broadcast crew:
Fourteen MLB.TV or Royals.TV teams have wire cams this season, including the Royals. However, what makes Kansas City stand out is that the Royals are one of two teams to have a wire cam and a drone. The other team to have both is the Milwaukee Brewers.
At The Star, Vahe Gregorian profiles Maikel Garcia:
And it speaks to why Garcia has become who he is, a pillar of the Royals, despite a future in baseball that was somewhere between improbable and unfathomable a decade ago.
Back then, maybe the only thing measurably clear about the then-16-year-old’s stature was his meager weight. When longtime Royals executive Rene Francisco told me a few years ago that Garcia had been 127 pounds, Garcia smiled and simply said “one hundred twenty-eight.” And when Picollo put it at 130 pounds last December after the Royals signed him to a contract extension, Garcia again smiled and said … 128.
Sam McDowell asks if they have fixed the outfield:
The outfield is more tweaked than overhauled this year — Kyle Isbel is now likely in a platoon with Lane Thomas in centerfield, and while Starling Marte appears more prepared to serve as a designated hitter, he’s still capable of playing there. Jac Caglianone is back after some rookie-year struggles, though those struggles were only at the big-league level. And the Royals have added Isaac Collins.
That group doesn’t include a middle-of-the-order addition they would have liked to make — the Royals avoided sacrificing their financial future or prospect future to acquire a power bat — but it still should be better.
Pete Grathoff looked at Kauffman’s new outfield dimensions:
“The distance and the height of the fence, both of those factors were part of how we did our research,” Picollo said. “With every foot you brought the fence in, it had an effect on fly balls. And for every, I’ll say, 6 inches you brought the fences down, it had an effect as well. So with our algorithms, our R&D (research and development) department, we were able to figure out what we were trying to accomplish with our field overall, whether it’s the height of the fence or the distance of the fence.
“We were trying to get the park to still play really below league average. We didn’t want to get to the point where it’s league average. We want it to play fair. So we had a sliding scale that essentially measured every foot you brought the fences in, and every 6 inches you brought the fences down, and where we landed was in the range that we were trying to accomplish.”
At KCUR, Halle Jackson reports on life at the Truman Sports Complex after the teams leave:
“The easy process is to just sign up a data center, make the county a bunch of money and call it a day. But I want Jackson County to think bigger,” LeVota said. “I want that area to be a vibrant, economically driven space that contributes to the financial engine of the region and for the benefit of Jackson County residents for years to come.”
The county released renderings that show potential jumping-off points for the sports complex’s future. Shopping, tennis courts, an amphitheater and more take the place of parking lots. One rendering even shows Arrowhead Stadium renamed and redeveloped into “Arrowhead Downs,” a horse racing facility.
It’s blog time!
At Inside the Crown ($), David Lesky makes his predictions.
The AL Central is something I’ve obviously discussed a ton, so I won’t waste a ton of internet ink on it, but I think the Tigers are the best team and the Royals are the second-best team. So that of course means I’ll be wrong and the Guardians with their lineup held together by bubble gum that’s been under a desk for a week will win 95 games and run away with the thing. I do think the Twins continue their sell-off and end up worse than the White Sox.
Meanwhile, at Into the Fountains, Craig Brown writes about the Royals setting their roster:
All of this movement meant that Drew Waters, who was out of options, was designated for assignment. He finishes his Royals career hitting .234/.300/.369 in 684 plate appearances spread over four seasons. Beyond a brief early showing back in ’22, there just wasn’t enough there. And if you couldn’t push your way into the starting outfield mix on this club the last couple of seasons, that’s going to be a problem. He’s still 27 and is a switch hitter. He will hook on with some team and maybe even find himself back on a major league bench in the not too distant future.
Kevin O’Brien also talked about this at Royals Keep:
Unfortunately, Lange and Falter are both out of Minor League options. Thus, to keep them on the 40-man roster, they both need to be on the active roster. While they haven’t had great Spring Training campaigns by any means, they certainly did enough to merit longer looks, even if there may be marginally better options in Triple-A, like Luinder Avila, Steven Cruz, and Ryan Bergert.
At this time of the year, the “option” game often carries a bigger weight, especially since teams do not want to lose possible MLB contributors for nothing on the waiver wire or in free agency. Thus, Lange and Falter will get a little more time at the beginning of the season to show if they can find their roles on the Royals’ pitching staff this season, and, perhaps, beyond.
Blog Roundup:
- Also, Kevin O’Brien at Royals Keep: Omaha Releases 2026 Opening Day Roster
- Jackson Huxel at Royals Keep: Three Keys To The Royals Winning On Opening Day
- Patrick Glancy at Powder Blue Nostalgia: 2026 MLB Predictions
- Caleb Moody at KOK: Star-studded Opening Day matchup might be exactly what Royals’ ace Cole Ragans needs
- Andy Nesbitt at SI: MLB Teams Are Offering the Saddest 9-9-9 Beer/Hot Dog Challenges at Games This Season
- Darin Watson at U.L.’s Toothpick: This Date In Royals History–1976 Edition: March 26
On a final little note, I wonder if Darin would ever do one of those ignominious years. Like “This Date in Royals History – 2004 Edition”. This was the Best Opening Day! This was the Grimsley/Harvey game (amusingly, one of the “next up on YouTube” clips is “Shocking Plane Crashes and Mistakes Caught on Camera”). This was the Chip Ambes game. This was the end of the 19-game losing streak. Think about it, Darin!
Ever since they moved Opening Day to Thursday, I like to do a little look in at all of the games around the league for OT.
Pirates at Mets – First game of the day was broadcast over the air on NBC. Good deal! A Brandon Lowe homer in the first gives the Pirates a 2-0 lead. That’s all Paul Skenes should need, right?
Oneil Cruz misplays not one, but two fly balls leading to 4 Mets runs. Skenes and his 67.50 ERA don’t make it out of the first. New Mets ace Freddy Peralta gave up 4 runs across 5 innings but the Mets offense kept producing, en route to an 11-7 win.
White Sox at Brewers – The revamped White Sox were no match for Jacob Misiorowski. His 11 strikeouts were a Brewers Opening Day record. But the Brewers weren’t done, as four relievers added 9 more Ks, “tying the modern Major League mark for strikeouts in any nine-inning game since at least 1900.” Miz was also just the 7th youngest pitcher to get double-digit strikeouts on Opening Day. Looking at the box score, I think I’m also impressed that 11 different White Sox struck out; it wasn’t just a couple golden sombreros and a couple other guys.
Tigers at Padres – Hyped Tigers prospect Kevin McGonigle had himself an MLB debut. His first major league hit was a 2-run double. He would tack on 3 more, going 4 for 5 with a pair of doubles, 2 runs, and 2 RBIs. A 2.000 OPS? Not bad, rook. Tarik Skubal was locked in, giving up only a single, unearned run in 6 IP. The Tigers lineup combination of Torkelson-McGonigle-Dingler… kindof makes me giggle. It sounds like a trio that suited up for the Boston Beaneaters. That said, they went 7 for 14 with 5 R and 6 RBI so they’ll probably make me eat my words later this season.
Nationals at Cubs – Pete Crow-Armstrong and Nica Hoerner have both signed 6-year contract extensions this week. But today belonged to the Nats. Joey Wiemer, who spent time in Omaha after arriving in the Brady Singer for Jonathan India swap, homered and collected 2 more hits and a walk. Going from a .603 OPS last year in AAA to 3.000 today. Not bad. Gametime temp at Wrigley this afternoon? A blustery 49 with 22 mph winds.
Twins at Orioles – Looking at the box score, nothing really jumped out, so I’m going to let MLB’s Jake Rill help me with this one: “In many ways, Thursday was truly Day One of what Baltimore believes could be a new era of O’s baseball. There was a new jumbo videoboard in center field at Camden Yards, a new superstar at first base (Pete Alonso), a new manager in the dugout and new faces all around.” Trevor Rogers went 7 scoreless. The O’s picked up a pair in the 7th, going single-single-sac fly-single-flyout-single, and held on for a 2-1 win.
Red Sox at Reds – Remember when Cincy got to host the first game of Opening Day? We should go back to that. The Reds have an Opening Day parade in downtown and treat the day like a holiday. Like we all should. As for the game, Garrett Crochet and Andrew Abbott traded 0s through 6 innings. But then the Red Sox plated 1 in the 7th and 2 in the 9th. Former Red (and Royal) Aroldis Chapman got the save.
Angels at Astros – This was another game that was scoreless through 6. José Soriano went for the Angels while Hunter Brown pitched for the Astros. Can we get just a couple more healthy seasons out of Mike Trout, enough to get him to 500 home runs? After 3 walks, he hit an absolute bomb to break the scoreless tie and the Angels went on to win 3-0.
Rays at Cardinals – If this game didn’t have a 6th inning, it would have been a ho-hum 1-1 snoozer. However, games do, indeed, have a 6th inning. In the top of that frame, Tampa batted around and then some, putting up a 6-spot. However, the Cardinals answered with 8(!) of their own, capped off with 2 sacrifice flies, and an Alec Burleson home run. After giving up 5 ER in 0 IP, poor Ian Seymour of the Rays has an ERA of, checks notes: infinity.
Rangers at Phillies – This seemed like a nice, easy win for Philadelphia. Kyle Schwarber homered in the 1st, Alec Bohm homered in the 5th, and Cristopher Sánchez threw 6 scoreless. Former Royal Jonathan Bowlan and a reliever named Zach Pop got to pitch an inning. It was 5-0 going into the 9th. But then the Rangers put 3 on the board in the 9th and had the tying run up to bat. However, Evan Carter grounded out to end the game.
Guardians at Mariners – Is-not-a-Royal Brendan Donovan became the first Mariner in franchise history to lead off the season with a home run. Dominic Canzone, of WBC Team Italy fame, added a pair of bombs for the M. However, it was not enough. Rookie Chase DeLauter had 2 home runs for the Guardians in his MLB regular-season debut (he played in last year’s playoffs). Cleveland won 6-4.
Diamondbacks at Dodgers – This was the late game and it just finished a little bit ago. The Dodgers bazillion dollar lineup hit a couple of homers, Yamamoto shoved in his season debut, and LA won 8-2.
I got the first game of Spring Training and now I get the first day of the regular season. I don’t care that it’s a repeat.
