Royals are royally screwed in Toronto thanks to lengthy unvaccinated list

The Kansas City Royals will be missing nearly a dozen players this weekend when they face the Toronto Blue Jays in Canada due to their unvaccinated players.

The Kansas City Royals announced to reporters, including Jeff Passan of ESPN, that 10 players on their roster will not be able to travel to Toronto this weekend when the club faces the Toronto Blue Jays.

More importantly, that list of 10 players includes virtually every important outfield bat and the two best starting pitchers on the Royals roster. Not great.

The Kansas City Royals will be royally screwed in Toronto this weekend

With adding 10 players to the restricted list, all 10 Kansas City Royals players will sacrifice their salary for the weekend and they won’t accrue any MLB service time either.

Here are the 10 players:

• Catchers (2): MJ Melendez, Cam Gallagher
• Outfielders (5): Whit Merrifield, Andrew Benintendi, Michael A. Taylor, Kyle Isbel, Hunter Dozier
• Starting pitchers (2): Bradd Keller, Brady Singer
• Relief pitchers (1): Dylan Coleman

Before the Royals, there were 25 players combined on opposing teams that were barred from not entering Canada (plus one player that was sent to the minor leagues).

For the Royals, Whit Merrifield would have been unable to play due to a toe injury that he suffered on Sunday. He missed both games of their doubleheader on Monday, breaking his streak of 553 games played in a row. However, now we know that the streak would have ended anyways with him not being able to travel to Toronto.

Benintendi is the club’s lone All-Star so he will have three days off before the All-Star festivities in Los Angeles. He is a free agent at the end of the season and with the Royals not being in playoff contention, the number of teams that the Royals could trade him to could be impacted by his status, especially to teams that play the Blue Jays in Toronto later this year.

With the moves, the Royals will be at a huge disadvantage, as they will have to call up 10 players from Triple-A or Double-A and they may even have to make some 40-man roster moves.