Busch Stadium, Opening Day (File Photo/UPI/Bill Greenblatt)
Opening Day is scheduled for Monday, April 3, when the Royals visit Minnesota to open the season on the road for the first time since 2014. The home opener at Kauffman Stadium will be on Monday, April 10 vs. Oakland.
Kansas City will play 20 Interleague contests over eight series, with four home and four on the road, with the majority of play against the National League West. The Royals will compete against their ‘I-70 rivals’, the St. Louis Cardinals, in back-to-back two-game series spanning both cities. The Cardinals visit Kauffman Stadium from August 7-8 and then the Royals will spend August 9-10 in Busch Stadium. Kansas City will host Interleague matchups against San Francisco (April 18-19), Colorado (August 22-24) and then close the regular season against Arizona (September 29-October 1), marking the first time a non-division opponent closed the campaign since 2010. The road Interleague schedule will take the Royals to San Diego (June 9-11), San Francisco (June 13-14) and Los Angeles (July 7-9), marking their second trip to San Francisco in franchise history (also in 2005) and their first trip to Dodger Stadium since 2003.
Kansas City’s holiday schedule sees the Royals at home on Easter Sunday vs. Anaheim (April 16), Mother’s Day vs. Baltimore (May 14) and Memorial Day vs. Detroit (May 29). They will travel to Anaheim on Father’s Day (June 18), Seattle on Independence Day (July 4) and Detroit on Labor Day (September 4).
The All-Star break will run from July 10-13 and will include the 88th Major League Baseball All-Star Game to be played on Tuesday, July 11 in Miami.
The month-by-month home game totals are: April: 11, May: 16, June: 14, July: 12, August: 15, September: 12 and October: 1. Kansas City will host three 10-game homestands from April 28-May 7, May 29-June 8 (11 days) and July 14-23. The Royals are scheduled for two 10-game road trips from May 19-28 (Minnesota, New York, Cleveland), and another over an 11-day stretch from September 14-24 (Cleveland, Toronto, Chicago).
For the first time since 2011, the Cardinals are slated to open the season at home, when they will host the rival Chicago Cubs on Monday, April 3. The Cardinals will also be home to close out the 2017 regular season during a weekend series against Milwaukee (Sept. 29-Oct. 1) at Busch Stadium.
The April 3 season opener with the Cubs will be the first game of a three-game series (April 3 & 5-6) with the Cubs and a season-opening six-game home stand that will also include three games against the Cincinnati Reds (April 7-9). The season opener against the Cubs will be the first between the two teams in St. Louis since 2000.
The Cardinals first road trip of 2017 will take them to Washington (April 10-12) followed by their first ever trip to new Yankee Stadium, as they will visit the Yankees for a three-game Easter weekend series (April 14-16) that will mark just their second interleague road series in the Bronx and their first since 2003.
The 20-game interleague portion of the 2017 schedule includes home-and- home two-game series with Boston (May 16-17 at Busch Stadium & August 15-16 at Fenway Park) and Kansas City (August 7-8 at Kauffman Stadium & August 9-10 at Busch Stadium). The Cardinals will host the Toronto Blue Jays (April 25-27) and Tampa Bay Rays (August 25-27) at Busch Stadium and will play a three-game weekend series at Baltimore’s Camden Yards (June 16-18) against the Orioles.
In addition to their season opening series with the Cubs, the Cardinals will also host Chicago for a three-game weekend series May 12-14 and a four-game set (Sept. 25-28) during the final week of the season.
The Cardinals will play the Los Angeles Dodgers six times during a nine-game stretch from May 23-31, visiting Dodger Stadium for three games May 23-25 before hosting the Dodgers the following week (May 29-31).
St. Louis will be home for a total of 13 weekend series in 2017: April 7-9 vs. Cincinnati, April 28-30 vs. Cincinnati, May 12-14 vs. Chicago Cubs, May 19-21 vs. San Francisco, June 9-11 vs. Philadelphia, June 23-25 vs. Pittsburgh, June 30-July 2 vs. Washington, July 7-9 vs. New York Mets, July 28-30 vs. Arizona, August 11-13 vs. Atlanta, August 25-27 vs. Tampa Bay, September 8-10 vs. Pittsburgh and September 29-Oct. 1 vs. Milwaukee.
The Cardinals are scheduled to play 50 of their 81 home games before the July 10-13 Major League Baseball All-Star break, playing 15 home games in April, 15 in May, 11 in June, 16 in July, 11 in August and 13 in Sept.-Oct. St. Louis will be home for holiday games on Memorial Day, May 29 vs. Los Angeles and Independence Day, July 4 vs. Miami.
