Off days in Major League Baseball most commonly fall on Mondays or Thursdays. These off days allow for three-game series to roll into the weekends. Having an off day on a Saturday is a rare occurrence, but for the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals, that’s just the case this weekend.
On Saturday, June 20th, the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals will take a one-day break from their three-game series. Why you may ask? Well, it’s due to Kansas City being a host city for World Cup Games this year.
The St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals aren’t playing on Saturday due to a World Cup Game.
The Cardinals dropped the first game of the I-70 series on Thursday night due to a blow-up start by left-handed starter Matthew Liberatore. Libby allowed seven runs in just 1.2 innings, and Gordon Graceffo didn’t fare much better, allowing four runs in the same span. Altogether, Cardinal pitchers gave up 14 runs to an otherwise lackluster Royals team Thursday night.
The two clubs will battle again Friday night as the Cardinals seek to even the series before the potential rubber match on Sunday afternoon. Prior to that final game, however, the two teams will take a day off on Saturday.
On Saturday, Ecuador and Curacao will face off at Arrowhead Stadium, normally the home of the Kansas City Chiefs. FIFA is temporarily using Arrowhead to host World Cup Games this summer, and the date of this Group E matchup conflicts with the Cardinals-Royals series. Considering the fact that Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadium share a parking lot, having games coincide or even be on the same day would be difficult.
I live in the Kansas City area and have been to many Royals games this year. Renovations for the World Cup at Arrowhead have also impacted the parking lot situation, and several parking spots have been turned into fan festival grounds. Additionally, soccer fans have stated that it took them several hours to get to the stadium for last week’s match between Argentina and Algeria.
Even if FIFA and MLB staggered start time Saturday, the parking lot situation would be a mess.
This is the second time in as many years that the Cardinals have been victims of bizarre scheduling conflicts on the weekend.
Last year, the Cardinals were paying a visit to George M. Steinbrenner Field just outside of Tampa Bay. The Tampa Bay Rays, whose stadium had been damaged by Hurricane Milton earlier last year, were using the New York Yankees’ minor-league stadium in 2025. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a preseason game scheduled to kick off at 6:30 P.M. on August 23rd, thus creating a conflict for the Rays and Cardinals.
The football game took precedence, and the baseball game was moved to Thursday instead.
The Cardinals are looking to continue a strong start to the season. National League teams are starting to creep up in the Wild Card race, so a series victory against the Royals is essential. After a loss Thursday night, victories on Friday and Sunday become even more crucial.
Just don’t look for a game Saturday night. The World Cup is priority #1 here in Kansas City.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source redbirdrants.com ’
