The Kansas City Royals have begun to play much better baseball. They have won five consecutive games, are 8-2 in their last 10 and have come to within 2 1/2 gam

Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski has quickly made his presence felt with the Kansas City Royals. In doing so, Yastrzemski has carved his name into the history books.

Kansas City Royals outfielder Mark Canha returned from an injury-rehabilitation assignment on Monday and was then designated for assignment, the club announced before its series-opening home game against the Texas Rangers. Canha, 36, was recovering from a left-elbow injury. He had been on the injury list since June 8, missing 32 major-league games.

With the victory, the Royals (64-61) are now also 2 1/2 games ahead of the Rangers (62-64). Both are chasing the New York Yankees (67-57) for the third and final AL wild-card spot in the Major League Baseball playoffs.

This past offseason, the Kansas City Royals needed to address their leadoff woes. Even though the Royals went 86-76 in 2024 and made the postseason, they got little production at the leadoff spot, which Maikel Garcia primarily manned.

Fans will have multiple opportunities this week to see if the Royals can make up ground in the race when the team plays host to the Nationals and White Sox. As usual, the Royals’ six games this week are on FanDuel Sports Kansas City and Sunday’s game also will be simulcast on two local stations in Kansas City.

Perez has still been a solid offensive presence for the Royals even as he enters the latter stages of his career. He was selected to back-to-back All-Star appearances in 2023–24 (marking his eighth and ninth career selections) and also added a fifth Silver Slugger Award last year.