Baseball returns to Kansas City today as the Royals host the Twins for their 2026 home opener. After going 1-2 over the weekend against the Braves, the Royals will look for a win today to reach .500, as sort of meaningless as it is this early in the season.

Max has you covered on the series preview, as usual, which you can find here. He also has you covered on some of the logistics of opening day.

For today’s game, Kris Bubic takes the hill for the first time this season. We last saw him start a game during the regular season on July 26th, 2025, before he was injured and shut down for the season. He was in the midst of an excellent season in which he threw for a 2.55 ERA / 2.89 FIP / 3.3 fWAR. There was a lot of trade speculation during the offseason since he is entering the final year before free agency, but a trade never materialized. I imagine that speculation will restart in June/July depending on how the Royals are positioned in the playoff race. In the meantime, I just hope to see him healthy.

The Twins send Simeon Woods Richardson to start. He’s a big right-handed pitcher who throws roughly five pitches – a four seam fastball, slider, curveball, split-finger, and changeup. To me, the split-finger and changeup share a similar movement profile; his changeup is just slower. His fastball sits about 93 on average, so he doesn’t bring any overpowering heat and does not get a ton of strikeouts.

Woods Richardson pitched to a 4.04 ERA / 4.52 FIP / 1.2 fWAR in 23 appearances last year across 111.1 innings. He’s definitely hittable. It will be interesting to see if the new fence line at Kauffman will make itself known in the first game. It will be a warm opening day – the ball may carry more than usual for a March game, and Woods Richardson is a fly ball pitcher. The ingredients are here for some fun.

The game starts at 3:10pm US Central time. You can watch the game on Royals.TV, or if you are local to Kansas City, it will be available over-the-air on KCTV5/KSMO. You can listen on 96.5 The Fan or the Royals Radio Network.