Royals will have one distinct advantage over other AL teams in second half
The Royals took fans on a wild ride in the first half of the season.
After a dreary start, the Royals were the best team in baseball for a spell, going a red-hot 16-2 in a stretch that ended just before Mother’s Day. But in June, they lost 11 consecutive games at Kauffman Stadium before finding their footing again.
As the All-Star break comes to an end, the Royals have a 47-50 record and are 4 1/2-games out of a playoff spot. That’s hardly ideal but it’s also not overly concerning. As my colleague Vahe Gregorian noted, the Royals will play 26 of their final 53 games against teams they hope to elbow out for a AL Wild-Card spot.
“If you look at our schedule in August, we play a lot of divisional teams, two of which are fighting for wild cards,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said last month while discussing the trade deadline. “Detroit’s clearly got a leg up on everybody, but the schedule after the deadline is pretty important. So I don’t think anything’s going to be dead come July 31, and there’s still a lot of games after July 31. So we’re just going to make the best decisions we can throughout the month of July to decide which way we go.”
The Royals have one advantage over nearly every team in the American League: their strength of schedule.
X user Thomas Nestico shared data from FanGraphs that shows only the Chicago Cubs have an easier slate of games remaining on their schedule than the Royals.
FanGraphs’ Strength of Schedule data determined the Royals’ remaining opponents have a .492 winning percentage. That is tied with the Twins for the the lowest in the AL.
“This is our estimation of the difficulty of each team’s remaining schedule,” FanGraphs wrote of its projections. “We take the average neutral-opponent winning percentage of each of a team’s remaining opponents, weighted by how many times the teams play.”
Three of the next four opponents for the Royals will be teams that currently have a losing record: Marlins, Guardians and Atlanta. After that is a tough three-city road trip to start August when KC will play the Blue Jays, Red Sox and Twins.
FanGraphs projects the Royals to finish the season with a 79-83 record.
This story was originally published July 18, 2025 at 8:56 AM with the headline "Royals will have one distinct advantage over other AL teams in second half."
