By Adam Gardner | April 27,2026
Isn’t it amazing how winning changes everything?
The doom and gloom of an eight-game losing streak weighed heavily on us, fans of the Kansas City Royals, and I assume it weighed heavily on the players, management and front office staff as well.
But then the Royals bats came alive and they swept the Los Angeles Angels at home this past weekend, earning their first series win one month into the season. This past week was the best the Royals have looked all season long, really.
I think I speak for all Royals fans when I say that getting swept by the New York Yankees followed up by the abysmal extra-inning loss to the Baltimore Orioles on April 20 was hopefully rock bottom for this team.
The eight-game losing streak was snapped the next night and then, after another loss to the Orioles, the Royals did just about everything right against the Angels.
Angels series is welcome sight
The Royals had 8 hits and 4 walks in a 6-3 win on Friday, but Saturday’s game really felt good. The Royals belted LA, 12-1, in a game with everything Royals fans want to see.
KC had 14 hits, 10 walks and struck out just 6 times. Salvador Perez homered and had 3 hits, Bobby Witt Jr., Michael Massey, Nick Loftin and Kyle Isbel all had 2 hits. Vinnie Pasqauntino didn’t have a hit, but he walked three times. Jac Caglianone and Isaac Collins each had 1 hit and each walked twice.
The Royals consistently got guys on base and they made the Angels pay by blowing them out. Former Royal Adam Frazier, who is definitely not a pitcher, had to finish the game on the mound for LA because the game was so out of hand. I also noticed Frazier has a serious Billy Crudup-as-Russell Hammond in “Almost Famous” vibe going on – just look at this.
KC topped Saturday’s blowout with a comeback for the ages on Sunday. Rany Jazayerli asked on Twitter if it was the most dramatic Royals game ever. I’d lean towards a postseason game just because of the known implications, but look at what the Royals did Sunday afternoon/evening.
I don’t have the Peacock streaming service, so I sadly was unable to watch the game. I followed along on the ESPN app using gamecast and lost my mind when Jac Caglianone tied the game up with 2 outs in the ninth on a 2-run homer.
Then I really lost it when Lane Thomas belted a 3-run, game-winning home run in the bottom of the 10th and had to screenshot my phone just to make sure I saw it correctly. It was awesome.
Cole Ragans shoves
There is a lot of baseball slang out there – more than I can keep up with – and sometimes I wish more of it would carry over into everyday conversation. Sure, you might hear “that presentation was a home run” in the office, but we can do better.
If you hear that a pitcher shoved, it means they really kicked ass. I would love to sit in my Tuesday morning meeting and have my boss tell me that I really shoved last week. I think I’m going to start this trend myself and see if it takes off.
Cole Ragans really shoved on Saturday. He pitched 6 innings, gave up just 5 hits and 1 run, and struck out 11 batters with zero walks. Ragans had the Angels looking helpless other than one pitch that Joe Adell hit for a home run.
The vibe Ragans gave off reminded me of the game in Cleveland earlier this season that he exited after getting hit by a ball in the hand. Ragans started off that game with a pair of dominant strikeouts before getting hit by a comebacker from Jose Ramirez, causing him to lose command and the Royals to pull him.
Those first two batters showed how special Ragans can be, and he brought that same juice on Saturday against LA. That version of Ragans is the one that had national pundits predicting a Cy Young-type of season from him.
More from the Angels series
Maikel Garcia remained out of the starting lineup with an elbow injury, so the Royals used the opportunity to play around with the batting order. That included a game with Carter Jensen hitting leadoff against a right-handed starting pitcher.
I’ve mentioned before that specific batting order isn’t really a big deal, you just want to make sure your best hitters are getting more opportunities than your weaker hitters. Seeing Jensen leadoff was beautiful – he’s hitting the ball hard, he is patient and willing to take walks, and those things mean there is a strong chance he could be not just on base but potentially in scoring position when Witt comes up behind him.
I’m curious to see what happens when Garcia is back in the lineup. Could we see Jensen leading off against righties and Garcia behind Witt in the No. 3 spot? LA had a left-handed starter on Sunday, so Lane Thomas was in the leadoff spot (thank God!) with Garcia still on the bench, but I would love to see that sort of order manipulation going forward.
It’s also nice to see Witt hit his first home run of the season on Sunday, and, really, the lineup as a whole starting to move in a positive direction. Most of the slash lines still aren’t great, but you can definitely see improvement from April 15 (top) through the end of last night’s game (bottom).
The bullpen pitched 9.1 innings this weekend with 2 runs allowed in the Angels series – and 1 run was an extra inning “ghost” runner. That’s a good trend because the KC bullpen had been the worst in the league with a collective ERA over 6.00.
The relievers have that number at 5.75 now and are in front of the Houston Astros. Look, 29th best bullpen ERA isn’t great, but it’s better than 30th.
Again, winning changes everything
The Royals have played poorly for the bulk of the first month of the season, but it’s not like they’re dead in a ditch. Maybe I’m wearing rose-colored glasses – or whatever they are calling the pink on top of their City Connect hats – but the Royals are just 3.5 games back in the America League Central.
We’re 30 days into the season and KC has looked dreadful, frankly, for many of those days. They are rightfully tied for last with the Chicago White Sox, but everything they want to accomplish is still right in front of them.
Fast forward to the middle of August and tell me the Royals are 3.5 games out of first in the AL Central and I would be mostly OK with it. It’s perfectly fine to say the team needs to play much better going forward while having some perspective on the big picture at the same time.
The bullpen has to continue to improve (it will be interesting to see when Carlos Estevez returns, and what he has in the tank), the starting pitchers need to continue putting out quality starts with the occasional shoves, and the bats need to keep improving.
And it would be great if Detroit and Cleveland hover around .500 all season to give the Royals a chance to climb back to the top of the standings. What happens the next couple weeks could give us a solid answer about whether the Royals are a team that can actually contend this season.
KC is off today, and then they play three against the A’s, three at Seattle, then 10 games against AL Central teams – four against Cleveland, three each against Detroit and Chicago. That’s 16 games with a huge implication for the rest of the season. I’m excited to see what happens.
It’s paramount that the Royals play better on the road. KC is 9-7 at home so far this season and just 2-10 on the road. That has to improve for any chance of a good season.
Gotta love the fight
A week ago Witt was answering a post-game question about fans booing the team after a tough loss. Witt said he understood, but he got to give a different quote after Sunday night’s game.
“That’s why no one should ever give up on us,” Witt said. “The guys we have in here. Because of how relentless we are and how we know who we are, we know what type of team we are, and we’re just going to keep proving it.”
I love the attitude. The Royals seemed to lay down and die the previous weekend against the Yankees, but they flipped the script this weekend against the Angels. It has me fired up for the month of May – winning changes everything.
The sweep of the Angels, punctuated by Sunday’s multiple comebacks, could be something we all look back on as the turning point in the season. I hope it’s something that goes down in Royals history and is talked about for years to come.
