The KC Royals will be better this year than they looked on opening day. Here’s why

Bobby Witt Jr. stood in front of his locker Thursday evening, 10 minutes removed from a Royals opening day loss that bested last year’s opening day loss by all of one swing.

The home team’s second swing of the game, actually.

Maikel Garcia gave the Royals just their second leadoff home run on opening day in team history — but it was also their only run in a 4-1 loss to the Twins at Kauffman Stadium. Garcia took just as good of a cut at a ball in the eighth inning, 105 mph off the bat, but he delivered that one right at center fielder Byron Buxton.

Garcia provided a bright spot on a day they were hard to come by against Twins right-handed starter Pablo Lopez. In fact, if you’re thinking that, other than Garcia’s blast to the left-field bullpen, Thursday’s game resembled last year’s opening day, you just might be on to something.

Until you walked into the clubhouse.

A deep breath here.

As Witt spoke, underscoring the importance of moving on to the second game of the series Saturday — yeah, there are 161 of these left after an off-day Friday — he could look to his left and see the corner locker: Michael Wacha’s.

He could look across to the other side of the room and see another: Seth Lugo’s. A few spots down: Brady Singer.

It’s obligatory to downplay the result of opening day games — though you’d kind of like to win them, no? — but Thursday’s outcome does remind us of the objective of the Royals’ offseason.

Limit the damage. Limit today to, well, today.

Witt spoke to me about it at length during spring training, a candid conversation in which he acknowledged the losses ate at him over the last two years. He needed to strategize how to change that, landing on mental performance techniques that narrow his focus to the moment confronting him.

To be sure, even the players who were here a year ago — only seven of them were part of the Royals’ 2023 opening day roster, if you can believe that — can take ownership of their part in it.

But for a team that lost 106 games last year, nothing matters more than the change in personnel. It’s even more important than the talent itself. And the Royals have a heck of a lot more of it, in the place that matters most.

Royals owner John Sherman injected a pretty good chunk of change into the roster this offseason — he committed more than $100 million to free agents, including some player options, the most expensive winter outlay in club history.

The Royals are better across the board because of it, but most evidently in the rotation. They should be good enough that some national experts have picked them to win the AL Central. (My take? That would be quite a climb. Let’s remember they would have to be 25 games better than last year just to finish .500.)

These are the moments in which those financial injections have to show some profit. OK, I don’t mean after one loss to open the season.

But the opening month? In April?

A year ago, the Royals allowed a miserable opening series against the Twins — they did not lead in any of the three games and were shut out twice — spiral into a miserable opening week, and then spiral further into a miserable opening month. And then, well, you know it finished. The most optimistic of fans knew the Royals were done by the time May arrived. Most knew it long before.

All the games count the same. You know this. But the Royals have to emerge from April unscathed. Heck, maybe even just mostly unscathed.

That’s the purpose of the spending.

The purpose of spending on the rotation.

Starting pitcher Cole Ragans was actually pretty good Thursday, albeit with some mistakes. The Royals can win a lot of games with Ragans on the mound. But it’s their collection of arms — Ragans, Lugo, Singer and Wacha — that can offer this club something it didn’t have at this time last year.

A deep breath after a tough day.