Royals Set Unexpected Franchise Record Vs. Orioles After Slow Start To 2025

Watching the Kansas City Royals play the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday was truly a fever dream.

Anyone who's seen the Royals all season knows just how much they've struggled to find home run power. They'd just hit three home runs in a game for the first time all season on Saturday, and still ranked at the bottom of the longball leaderboard in Major League Baseball.

However, facing Kyle Gibson at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the floodgates opened.

The Royals pummeled seven home runs on Sunday in an 11-6 win over the Orioles, securing a series win and putting Kansas City two games above .500. It was a single-game franchise record, beating the previous mark of six, which they had done three times before.

Maikel Garcia, who has been a pleasant surprise for the Royals all season, hit the first home run to set the tone, then added another in the sixth inning to help extend the Kansas City lead.

“That's fun for us,” Garcia said, per Paige Leckie of MLB.com. “Like, we go there and play hard, hit our seven home runs for the first time in franchise [history], and that's good for us."

There was also a milestone involved--left fielder Jonathan India finally hit his first home run as a Royal after 31 games of trying.

“It felt great,” India said, per Leckie. “It was a tough pitch, and I just stayed through and hit a good line drive. And thank God they have a short fence out there -- I thought it was just a ball in the gap, but it felt great. Put a good swing on a good pitch.”

The Royals entered Sunday's game with just 18 home runs all year, which comfortably put them in last place among all big-league teams. But the seven-homer explosion helped them leapfrog the Toronto Blue Jays, who have 23, to get out of last place among the 30 clubs.

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