By Adam Gardner / April 2, 2026
Winning is fun.
The Royals earned a series win over the Minnesota Twins this week and nothing puts a pep in your step like winning the first home series of the season. Especially after dropping the season-opener in Atlanta.
Kris Bubic was great against the Twins on Monday as the Royals won 3-1. Then Noah Cameron pitched a good 5 innings Wednesday before things got really sloppy. Look at the picture at the top of this post – it was gray, wet and foggy.
Near-constant rain put a damper on several pitchers, but it didn’t seem to bother anybody at the plate. The Royals scored 5 runs on Joe Ryan (who was a pain for KC to deal with in 2025), and there was a total of 16 runs scored in the final four innings. The Twins scored 5 runs in the final two frames to turn a blowout into something a closer than it deserved.
Nick Mears and Lucas Erceg looked good out of the pen for the Royals. Unfortunately, Daniel Lynch IV, Alex Lange and Bailey Falter looked pretty rough Wednesday night, and Steven Cruz (called up when Carlos Estevez was placed in the Injured List) got beat up a bit Thursday afternoon in the final game of the series, a 5-1 Royals loss.
I’m hoping the bulk of the issue Wednesday was a combination of a wet ball and a tough mound to pitch on due to the rain. I expect Cruz to bounce back from Thursday’s rough outing.
It would have been nice to get a sweep against the Twins, but a series win over a division opponent is never something to complain about.
ABS is incredible
Major League Baseball’s Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System has gone really well in the first week of the regular season.
If you haven’t seen this advancement in the game yet, this gives batters, catchers and pitchers the ability to challenge an umpire’s ball or strike call. Each team is allotted two challenges per game, and you get to keep your challenge if you’re successful in that challenge – it’s possible to challenge 100 calls in a game as long as you’re always correct. Once you lose two challenges, you’re done for the game.
Technology doesn’t make everything better, but I’m a fan of this system. Why should we suffer through incorrect calls when we have the ability to know if a pitch is a ball or strike?
I like umpires, they are crucial to the game and they do a tremendous job. MLB umps are incredible at calling balls and strikes, but humans make errors. Most of the overturned calls have been very close calls.
It’s tougher on some than others
There are outliers, of course. CB Bucknor had a no good, very bad day calling a Red Sox at Reds game. Look at this graphic courtesy of @UmpScorecards on Twitter (X, whatever you call it).
That’s a lot of missed calls. Just so you can see the difference, here’s the Umpire Scorecard for Alex Tosi, who was behind the plate for the Royals home opener against the Twins on Monday.
See how there are fewer incorrect calls? Bucknor had 26 taken pitches called incorrectly – Tosi had just 4 wrong.
I knew CB Bucknor’s name prior to the ABS and generally it’s not great when I know an umpire or official’s name. It likely means they’ve made enough bad calls that they’ve received attention for it. I had no idea who Alex Tosi was before I looked up who called the Royals game on Monday.
But remember this – Bucknor is still one of the best umpires in the world. He became a major league umpire for a reason. It’s an incredibly hard job and only a few people can really do it.
And now we have a way to help the umpires out. I’m sure it’s a blow to the ego at least a little bit to have your call overturned in front of a crowd of people – “Everyone look! This guy screwed up!” But ultimately every umpire and official wants to get the call correct.
When I was working for the local newspaper, I was covering a high school baseball game, camera in hand. The centerfielder made a diving play and the field umpire called the batter out. It was a really close call.
I checked my camera and could see the fielder had trapped the ball against the ground – it should have been a hit. I knew the field umpire and between innings he walked over to me near the fence down the first base line and asked if he’d gotten the call right.
He shook his head and was upset he’d gotten it wrong. It didn’t matter what the score was, which team was fielding or hitting, he just wanted to make the correct call.
That goes all the way to the top. Alex Tosi, CB Bucknor – they just want to make the correct call, and now the ABS can help make sure the game is called more correctly.
Former umps share their ABS opinions
“The Athletic” talked with a handful of former MLB umpires and it’s fair to say they aren’t huge fans of the system. Their problem isn’t that they’ve lost complete control over the strike zone, it’s more about how the strike zone isn’t a perfectly defined concept and being “wrong” can come down to the tiniest margin.
Former umpire Dale Scott told “The Athletic” that current umpires are learning the zones and are trying to not have calls overturned. “But the problem is when you’re talking about 1/10th of an inch, being close doesn’t really help,” he said.
Seeing an umpire miss a call by 1/10th of an inch isn’t a knock against that umpire, though. I hope the Royals benefit from calls that are overturned by 1/10th of an inch, but I’m not going to throw that in an umpire’s face.
Former umpire Joe West said something in the same story that I believe as well: the current umpires are going to get a better feel for what a current strike/ball is the more games they do behind the plate with ABS in place. They are the best in the world, and they’ll likely be better overall later this season than they are right now.
ABS isn’t going away and we’ll all get used to it more and more as the season moves forward. The bottom line is that the game is going to be called more accurately and that’s a good thing.
Royals new broadcasting lineup
We’re two series into the season and we’ve seen almost the entire Royals broadcasting team. Eric Hosmer worked with Ryan Lefebvre in Atlanta, then Jeremy Guthrie took the series against the Twins with Lefebvre.
Bridget Howard made her debut with Monday’s home opener. Joel Goldberg and Jeff Montgomery are in their usual spots pre- and post-game. So that leaves one question.
Where is Rex Hudler?
According to Pete Grathoff of “The Kansas City Star,” Hosmer, Guthrie and Hudler will each call about one-third of the broadcasts this season. It looks like Hud is lined up to be on the call with Lefebvre against the Brewers on Saturday.
It took me a little bit of time to warm up to Hudler when he started with the Royals in 2012. The team hadn’t fielded a winner in a while and to have a new guy step in with so much energy – it was off-putting. He didn’t seem to have any control and was a distraction.
But winning, as it so often does, makes things better. The Royals made a push for the postseason in 2013 and Hudler’s energy was suddenly more palatable. Memories of the the back-to-back World Series trips in 2014 and 2015 have Hud woven throughout. He’s not just a lovable goof – he’s been a major part of some of my happies sports memories. Winning is fun.
I’m looking forward to how Hosmer develops as a color analyst, and Jeremy Guthrie does a good job. The entire broadcast is enjoyable, and this year’s partnership with MLB.tv is a much better product than previous seasons with Bally’s or FanDuel.
But I’m ready for some Hudler in my life.
