Early schedule provides opportunity for the Royals

Kansas City has a favorable April schedule and needs to take advantage

The schedule to begin 2026 is a bit of a gift for a Royals team that has not gotten off to the strongest starts historically. Last year’s team made it to the end of April at 16-15 and even stayed above .500 through May before having one of the most atrocious months I have ever seen in June, which ended up being too much to overcome in the end. This year, the MLB schedule makers have deigned to give the Royals an early season scheduling gift. Here are the series that they will play through April:

• 3 games at Atlanta Braves

• 3 games vs. Minnesota Twins

• 3 games vs. Milwaukee Brewers

• 3 games at Cleveland Guardians

• 4 games vs. Chicago White Sox

• 3 games at Detroit Tigers

• 3 games at New York Yankees

• 3 games vs. Baltimore Orioles

• 3 games vs. Los Angeles Angels

Outside of the nine-game stretch at Detroit, at New York, and home for Baltimore, the other opponents are all fine-to-bad. Milwaukee has a habit of being quite good, but they are projected for a win total in the low 80s. Atlanta is currently missing Sean Murphy, Ha-Seong Kim, Spencer Strider, and several other players right now and is quite vulnerable. Minnesota was gutted last year and only has starting pitching to lean on. There are a lot of opportunities to pick up early wins, and maybe more importantly for this team, early confidence.

The Yankees, Brewers, Braves, Orioles, and Tigers are projected to have winning records, but the Braves are not at full strength. That means half of the teams faced are projected below five hundred and they are projected to be further below .500 than the first five are projected to be above. The projected weighted average win percentage for these 31 games is just .493 helped out by that bonus fourth game against the White Sox. Of the 31 games, 16 are at home and 15 on the road, giving the Royals a slight advantage in their ballpark with new dimensions to fit them.

Getting off to a good start can be huge for this team. They have a chance to get the momentum early in a winnable division. There is only the one short stretch of nine games against Detroit, New York, and Baltimore where the goal would be to win four out of nine, and you would be happy not to have dropped more. The rest of those are all series you should feel like you can win, and it is a matter of banking as many of those as possible. Something like an 18-13 start looks very possible, which would be a nice step toward a successful season.

That would not be enough to guarantee anything over a long season, but for a team like this, it could make a huge difference.