Royals win home opener over the Twins

KANSAS CITY, Mo (KSNT) – The Kansas City Royals celebrated the 2026 home opener with a strong performance Monday night, defeating the Minnesota Twins 3–1 at Kauffman Stadium.

Power from the bottom half of the lineup and a dominant pitching performance helped Kansas City secure the win in front of a sellout crowd of more than 39,000 fans.

Kyle Isbel provided the biggest early swing of the night, launching a two-run home run in the second inning to give the Royals the lead. The blast scored Jonathan India, who had opened the inning with a single.

Minnesota briefly answered in the top of the second when Matt Wallner crushed a solo home run to right-center field, cutting the deficit to one run.

Kris Bubic delivered a strong outing in the home opener, earning the win after throwing six innings while allowing just two hits and one run. The left-hander walked three and struck out four, consistently working out of trouble and keeping the Twins lineup off balance.

Kansas City added an insurance run in the seventh inning thanks to Isaac Collins hitting his first home run of the season.

The Royals bullpen sealed the victory from there. Daniel Lynch IV, Nick Mears and John Schreiber combined to throw three scoreless innings to close the game, with Schreiber picking up his first save of the season.

The victory improves the Royals to 2–2 on the young season.

Game two is set for Wednesday at 6:40.

For more sports news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.

‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’

‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’