Royals home, then hitting the road + Chiefs in NFL Draft mode + soccer: KC’s Next Play
The Royals started hot, then cooled like a brain-freeze, and now we’re seeing what this season will likely persist in presenting: some brilliance, some forehead-slapping, a little promise and a lot of learning along the way, all hopefully coalescing in contention for a Major League Baseball playoff berth among a field that’s expanding this year from 10 to 12 teams.
That’s a lot to digest, right off the bat, but now that it’s out of the way, we can talk about the Royals’ schedule for this coming week.
We’ll also run through a little Chiefs football and then get into some Sporting KC and KC Comets fútbol. It’s time for another KC’s Next Play, and we’re mighty glad you’ve joined us.
Royals home, then on road
The week ahead includes the Royals’ first West Coast swing of the 2022 season. If you’re like us, you’ll be looking to sneak in some extra winks where you can in hopes of staying up long past your usual bedtime for those three games in Seattle.
The Royals finish a home series against the Tigers today (Sunday), are off Monday and then welcome the Minnesota Twins to Kauffman Stadium for a Tuesday-Thursday series before embarking on a road trip that includes three games at the Mariners (Friday-Sunday, April 24) followed by three in Chicago against the White Sox.
Chiefs prepping for NFL Draft
With less than two weeks remaining until the 2022 NFL Draft in Las Vegas, the Chiefs are about as ready as they’re going to get for commissioner Roger Goodell to announce they’re on the clock with the 29th pick ... followed promptly by the 30th.
They’ll make those back-to-back selections, barring a trade or trades of a pick or picks, toward the conclusion of Round 1 on the opening night of the three-day draft — that’s Thursday night, April 28.
The Chiefs currently hold 12 picks in all and are deep in their process of analyzing and ranking this year’s pool of available college talent. That’s been done through “top-30 visits,” the visits that each team (up to 30 allowed per franchise) is permitted to schedule with prospective draftees. Teams can’t put prospects through football drills during these visits, but their coaches can ask a lot of football questions and get to know them better as people.
A final pre-draft reminder that, as this year’s three-day spectacle gets underway soon in Las Vegas, Kansas City will be on the clock in another way. The 2023 NFL Draft is going to be held right here in KC.
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Sporting KC seeks turnaround
Seeking a turnaround after a rough start to the season, Sporting Kansas City (2-5-0) returns to the pitch today (Sunday) against LAFC at Banc of California Stadium in the Expo Park area of Los Angeles.
The game is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. Central Time. And then it’s home again, as Sporting plays host next Saturday to the Columbus Crew in a match slated to start at 7:30 p.m. at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kan.
As manager Peter Vermes sees it, Sporting KC’s issues — especially on offense, where the squad has yet to score more than one goal in any one match — are rooted in a misaligned mentality. Our own Sam McDowell had an insightful column about that, based on a sit-down with Vermes, in Friday’s Star and online at Kansascity.com.
KC Comets in the semifinals
After opening the Major Arena Soccer League semifinals against the Florida Tropics at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence on Saturday evening, the Kansas City Comets will be in Lakeland, Fla., for Game 2 of the two-game set this coming Saturday, April 23 (kickoff 5 p.m. Central Time).
If the semifinal series ends up tied at a win apiece (this happened in the Comets’ quarterfinal series against the Dallas Sidekicks), they’ll play a 15-minute mini-game immediately following Saturday’s match, with the team that scores the most goals during that period advancing to the MASL finals in pursuit of the 2022 Ron Newman Cup.