Kansas City Royals: Looking Ahead to 2018 Season Schedule

The Kansas City Royals announced the release of their 2018 schedule on Tuesday. The season will begin with a home series against the White Sox on March 29. Here’s how we see the year playing out.

The 2017 season isn’t even over yet, and we’re already looking ahead to 2018. Don’t blame us. The Kansas City Royals took it upon themselves—in accordance with Major League Baseball—to release their schedule for next year on Tuesday.

It’s a season fans are not exactly thrilled to be reminded is on the way. Yes, the team has several impending free agents that are likely to walk or else cripple the franchise financially. Put aside the doom and gloom for a second, because we think the 2018 schedule drop is still worth exploring.

Due to more days off (four to be exact) factored into the schedule, the Kansas City Royals will open the season on Thursday, March 29. That day they will host the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium. The game, as with all others, is at a yet-to-be-determined time.

The opening series includes the customary day off after the opener, which means a rare Friday night without baseball. It marks the third time in four seasons the Kansas City Royals have started the year at The K.

That’s proven successful in the past. In 2015, the Boys in Blue defeated the White Sox to open the season. The next year the Kansas City Royals won a World Series rematch with the Mets in primetime.

We’re going to give you a month-by-month breakdown of the schedule. (You know for the months with more than just two games in them.) We’ll also give a way-too-early projection of how each month will shake out. Be sure to save this link to rub in my face later.

April Schedule

After finishing up with the White Sox, the Kansas City Royals hit the road for their first road trip of the season.

Stops in Detroit and Cleveland will wrap up a string of nine consecutive games against Central Division foes to begin the season. The Cleveland series marks the start of a stretch with 13 games in as many days. The stretch involves home series against the Mariners and Angels—the latter of which is the team’s first four-game set of the season—and ends with a trip north of the border to visit the Blue Jays.

A pair of days off are sandwiched around a second April trip to Detroit, after which the Royals finish the month with six of seven at home. The Brewers and the White Sox, again, will head to Kauffman Stadium before the month ends with a game at Fenway Park.

Analysis

On paper, the Kansas City Royals could not ask for a much better month of April (plus the two games in March) with which to start the season.

The team has 16 home games between March 29 and April 29. The two road trips both include just two cities apiece and each also includes a day off in between series. That’s a pretty ideal schedule.

Not to mention the teams involved. It’s obviously way too early to know how teams will shape up entering 2018. But the White Sox, Tigers and Blue Jays are set to end 2017 as three of the four worst teams in the American League. Even if these teams improve with an influx of young talent, particularly in Chicago, they likely won’t be world-beaters early in the year.

Of course, the flip side of that is the Kansas City Royals will likely be breaking in a lot of inexperienced players, too.

Prediction: 12-17 (factoring in the two March games)

June Schedule

Oddly enough, the Kansas City Royals spend the entire month of June facing only teams from the American League West and National League Central divisions. The month does feature five days off. Those will hopefully alleviate some of the fatigue involved with two separate trips to the West Coast.

The month opens with 10 games against the AL West Division. Three home games against Oakland is followed by a trip to face the Angels and Athletics. After that the rest of the month consists of one long homestand and one long road trip.

During the homestand, the Kansas City Royals will host the Reds for two games and, after a day off, the Astros and Rangers for three games apiece. Next comes quite possibly the strangest road trip of the season for the Royals with stops in Houston, Milwaukee and Seattle to close out the month.

Analysis

It’s an interesting month to say the least for the Kansas City Royals with 25 games total. Four of them are against the Reds and Brewers—two apiece—while the remaining 21 come against the five teams that make up the AL West.

Fatigue could be an issue, particularly during the road trip at the end of the month. However, days off sandwiched around the two-game set in Milwaukee will hopefully ease those concerns. Plus, it helps that this trip comes in the first half of the season.

As a whole, the AL West has been impressive this season. Four teams are currently in the playoff picture. Houston ran away with the division title a long time ago, but Texas, Seattle and Los Angeles are all in the thick of the Wild Card race. Oakland has been the only one outside the race, but they cashed in at the trade deadline for prospects who could pay dividends in 2018 and beyond.

Prediction: 11-14 (Season to date, 34-48)

July Schedule

Once they have finished their ridiculous road trip with a game on July 1 in Seattle, the Kansas City Royals return back home to relax. Or possibly get beaten six combined times by Cleveland and Boston.

One or the other.

The Boys in Blue wrap up their pre-All-Star break schedule with a road trip to Minnesota and Chicago. Opening and closing with the White Sox—a team whose strategy of selling off players the Kansas City Royals could have tried to mimic in 2017—is a symbolic end to a first half that has been likely disappointing, although not unexpectedly so.

After the All-Star Game in Washington on July 17 (expect only one Kansas City Royals player to make it unless the ballot boxes are stuffed), the team opens the second half with a six-game homestand.

Following three games each with the Twins and Tigers, the Royals hit the Big Apple for four games with the 2018 American League East Division champion Yankees. (You heard it here first, folks.) A trip to face the White Sox starting on July 31—another symbolic moment shared with the North Side—bridges the gap into August.

Analysis

Symbolism aside, this shouldn’t be a terrible month for the Kansas City Royals. The team has some tough series to be sure. Sixteen of the games are against teams currently holding an AL playoff position.

Even still, the Kansas City Royals will start playing well at some point in the season. Why not July?

The team will likely take some shots on the chin after a brutal home series following their ridiculous road trip. But expect them to fight back with a good showing the rest of the month, buoyed—no doubt—by the much-needed All-Star break.

With few representatives, virtually the entire team will get four days to rest up in hopes of having a respectable second half.

Prediction: 14-10 (Season to date, 48-58)

August Schedule

Few long trips are what jump out at you after looking at the August schedule for the Kansas City Royals. A flight down to Tampa is the only trip further than Minneapolis that the team will make in the month.

It should be a nice break. After a June and July with only 23 combined home games, the Kansas City Royals will play at Kauffman Stadium in 16 of their 28 August games.

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The Royals make that trip to see the Twins after finishing the series with the White Sox. The team then heads back to Kansas City to welcome the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals and Toronto Blue Jays to town.

After the extended homestand, the Kansas City Royals will return to Chicago before the aforementioned trip to face Tampa Bay. The month concludes with three games against Cleveland, two against Detroit and one against Baltimore—all at home.

Analysis

Starting with the Cubbies visit to Kansas City, the longest homestand of the season will encompass 10 games over 11 days in the middle of August. Those are going to be some toasty contests. The homestand coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally) comes right after the team wraps ups its longest road trip by number of games.

Even though the Houston, Milwaukee to Seattle gauntlet accumulates more frequent flyer miles, the road trip only consists of eight games. The New York, Chicago to Minneapolis trip, on the other hand, involves 10 games in 11 days away from home.

It’s hard to see the Kansas City Royals faring too well at the end of the long road trip or the beginning of the homestand. The opponents the team will face in August aren’t overly threatening. But, at this point in the season, it’s hard to know what you’re going to get out of a team that knows it won’t play in the postseason.

Then again, it couldn’t be any worse than how the Kansas City Royals played this August. And that was with a completely legitimate shot at making the playoffs.

Prediction: 12-16 (Season to date, 60-74)

September Schedule

(Editor’s note: This slide has been updated to correctly reflect the number of games in September.)

The Kansas City Royals will hit the road after completing their series with Baltimore. First up will be a trip to Cleveland, followed by a stop in Minnesota.

The penultimate homestand of the season will see the Kansas City Royals face the White Sox and Twins for the final time in 2018. The team then must labor through an almost certainly meaningless nine-game trip to Pittsburgh (three games), Detroit (four) and Cincinnati (two).

Cleveland comes to Kansas City for a four-game set to conclude the season, which will wrap up exactly on Sept. 30.

Analysis

As with most Septembers, the Kansas City Royals will see a lot of familiar faces over the final few weeks of the season. Seasons often end with several intradivisonal series. 2018 will be no different, with the Royals playing each American League Central Division team at least once in the final month.

Aside from two games to wrap up the Baltimore series, the Kansas City Royals will have just two series against non-AL Central Division teams. And those two series come against teams from the National League Central Division—Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

After a long season that never had a chance, don’t expect the Kansas City Royals to put up much of a fight on the way out the door. Even if they want to stay focused, the schedule does them no favors down the stretch.

By the time the long, excruciating season comes to a close, the team’s recent run of success will seem but a distant memory.

Prediction: 11-17 (End of season record, 71-91)

Next: Breaking Down the Royals' Playoff Chances

So what do you think, Royals fans? What part of the schedule sticks out most to you? How do you see the team doing in 2018? Let us know in the comments and on social media.