The Royals closed out their homestand with a thud Sunday, getting rolled 10-2 by the Cubs at Kauffman Stadium and handing the final game to position player Josh Rojas, who threw a scoreless ninth inning after the outcome was long decided. It was a rough finish to a stretch that had started so much better, and it also snapped a four-series win streak at The K, where Kansas City had gone 9-3.
Even with the sour ending, there were clear themes from the week before the Royals head to the West Coast for a six-game trip against the Dodgers and Angels. The biggest one is right in the middle of the lineup: Bobby Witt Jr. and Jac Caglianone look like the kind of bats the Royals can build around.
Witt came back Tuesday from the first injured list stint of his career and immediately looked like himself. In eight games, he went 8-for-22 (.364) with three walks, two doubles, three RBIs and six runs scored.
Caglianone was even hotter, finishing the homestand 11-for-19 (.579) with three doubles, two homers and seven RBIs. Saturday night was the exclamation point, when he went 4-for-4 in a career night.
He’s now hit safely in all eight games this month.
“It was great to have Bobby back, first and foremost, and to be healthy,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “I was really happy to be able to put him in there today. Jac, obviously, had a huge day [Saturday], and we saw a lot of mature at-bats from him throughout the homestand.”
Kansas City has plenty to sort out this offseason, especially on the pitching side and in the rest of the offense, but this week reinforced why the club keeps talking about competing in ‘27. Witt is already a star, Caglianone is trending that way, and the Royals believe those two can be the foundation.
The rotation gave them a steadier look, too. Randy Dobnak, Noah Cameron, Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo combined to post a 3.03 ERA across five games during the homestand, with Dobnak making two of those starts. Sunday was the one hiccup, as he allowed four runs in five innings, though he pointed out that the defense behind him didn’t help.
“From a pitching standpoint, it was one of my better outings,” Dobnak said. “Some bad luck with some of those weak hits. … Being a contact pitcher like myself, you’re going to run into stretches where balls find grass or find the infield grass.”
The rotation picture isn’t finished, though. Daniel Lynch IV is back in the starter’s mix and will be built up from here after taking the ball Friday against the Cubs in his first start since May 27, 2025.
He gave up four runs in 1 2/3 innings, which pushed the homestand ERA for the group to 4.02, but the Royals still saw enough positives to keep moving him along. He’s scheduled to start against the Dodgers on Wednesday.
The bullpen is also in the middle of a reset, with the Royals trying to find out who can help them now and who can be part of the plan next year. Mason Black gave them five innings of two-run relief Friday after leaning on changes he had been working on in Triple-A Omaha. Nate Pearson logged his first save as a Royal on Saturday, and the team likes the idea of putting him in bigger spots if he can sharpen his strike-throwing.
Steven Cruz is being asked to handle the highest-leverage work out of the bullpen, a new role for him. He saved Wednesday’s game by hitting 100 mph against the Twins and then worked the eighth inning Saturday against the heart of the Cubs’ order without allowing a run. For the 27-year-old, every inning like that matters.
Not every audition went smoothly. Easton McGee, acquired from the Brewers in a trade on July 14, gave up six runs in two innings Sunday.
“Came in [down] 4-2 today,” McGee said. “My job was to keep it there. I just didn’t get it done today.”
In Other News...
Bobby Witt Jr. Trade Buzz Just Gave Royals Fans A Reminder
The chatter around the 2026 MLB trade deadline served as another reminder of how scarce elite shortstops are, and Bobby Witt Jr. was right in the middle of that conversation. Boston was known to be exploring the position, with interest in several names before ultimately landing catcher Adley Rutschman from Baltimore, while other players around the league were quietly treated as untouchable long before the deadline really got moving.
For Royals fans, the larger takeaway was not that Witt was suddenly available, but the opposite. Kansas City has long operated as if its franchise centerpiece is off-limits, and the idea that a club like Boston would even circle his name only reinforced how valuable he has become. It also underscored a familiar deadline truth: teams can ask, but some players are simply too important to pry loose. [Read more 🡒]
Royals Walk Into A Rough Dodgers Test As Massey Finally Gets His Shot
Michael Massey is finally set to get a long-awaited first look at Dodger Stadium this week, a small but meaningful wrinkle in a three-game Royals series that offers one of the tougher road tests on the schedule. The Kansas City second baseman has played in every other major league ballpark, and this trip to Los Angeles gives him a chance to check off one of the last boxes on the list while the Royals face a Dodgers club that is still built to make a series feel like an event.
The matchup only gets more demanding from there, with Los Angeles lining up Tarik Skubal and Blake Snell for the first two games. Skubal was recently acquired from the Tigers, and Snell is working back from injury, which gives the series an added layer of intrigue even before the Royals start worrying about the usual Dodger pressure. For Massey, the trip is about finally getting on the field in a stadium he has kept missing, and for Kansas City it is another reminder that there are no soft landings in a place like this. [Read more 🡒]
Royals Pipeline Looks Stronger As Long Term Core Questions Loom
Baseball Americas latest top 100 prospects list gave the Royals another reminder that the pipeline is not thinning out. Kansas City placed three players inside the ranking, with Kendry Chourio at No. 33, Angeibel Gomez at No. 47 and Josh Hammond at No. 55, a trio that points to real organizational depth at a time when the big-league club is trying to keep building something sustainable. Chourio has been turning heads with strong work at High-A Quad Cities, while Gomez has stood out in the Dominican Summer League.
For a Royals team weighing the long-term shape of its core, that kind of prospect presence matters. The conversation around the roster will inevitably circle back to Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia, whose contract situations loom over the bigger picture, and the front office would love to have internal options arriving at the right time. Lists like this do not guarantee anything, but they do show Kansas City has more than one path to keep the roster stocked if the next wave continues to develop. [Read more 🡒]