SURPRISE, Ariz. -- March has arrived, and the Royals play meaningful baseball at the end of this month.

Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez couldn’t be more ready.

“No doubt,” Witt said. “It’s time to go.”

Witt and Perez crushed their first spring home runs in the Royals’ 5-4 walk-off win over the A’s at Surprise Stadium on Friday and with that the countdown is officially on for Opening Day on March 28 in Kansas City.

“It’s been a great camp so far,” Witt said. “There’s a lot of confidence going around here. Having new faces, knowing we want to go out and win – there’s nothing else other than we want to win. Last year is definitely in the past. Now, we’re focused on 2024, and you can just tell with the new guys we’ve brought to the table, there’s some competition going on out there.”

Witt went 2-for-3 with an RBI, two runs scored and a strikeout Friday. Perez went 1-for-3, with his first hit of the spring being the home run, which came in the first inning with Witt on base. An inning later, Witt went to nearly the same spot over the center-field fence – offering a good look at what they can do in the middle of the Royals’ lineup this season.

After a slow start to the spring, Witt is starting to heat up at the plate and is now 3-for-12 in four Cactus League games with just one strikeout.

“At times, I’ve shot up really quick in Spring Training, and then kind of get to a spot where I’m trying to work on things,” Witt said. “I’m trying to work on those things now so that in the season when I feel something, I know what the fix is right away.”

Ragans tunes up to three innings

Cole Ragans’ starts in the second half last year were must-see games, and he’s only continued that in his first Spring Training with the Royals. On Friday, he breezed his way through three innings on 40 pitches (27 strikes) with one hit, one walk and three strikeouts.

He was up to 100 mph on the radar gun. In the third inning, he needed just eight pitches – and all eight were strikes.

That inning was good to see after Ragans felt out of whack with his mechanics in the second inning when he walked JJ Bleday, yanking some offspeed pitches. A major goal of Ragans, the Royals’ 26-year-old budding ace, this year is to make those in-game adjustments quickly when he feels his mechanics get out of sync.

“I felt like last year there were a few outings I struggled with it,” Ragans said. “So it’s been great. I felt like today, I did a really good job of it. It was more so finding the right thought process, I guess you could say, of what I tell myself to get back to the right mechanics. I felt like I took a big step last year making the adjustment, so kind of building off it this spring.”

Between his spring debut on Sunday and Friday’s start, Ragans focused on his slider movement after seeing the breaking pitch up in the zone more than he had liked.

“Definitely felt like my movement got to where I wanted it,” Ragans said. “So now it’s mostly the command of it. But I was pleased with how it looked today.”

Renfroe makes his spring debut

It was a bit later than he wanted, but outfielder Hunter Renfroe suited up as a Royal for the first time on Friday after minor lower back tightness delayed him some last week. He used the early part of this week to ramp up on the back fields before getting his first live game action on Friday as the designated hitter, going 0-for-2 with a walk.

“It was like a little spasm, probably from dehydration coming out here in this dry weather,” Renfroe said of his back tightness. “Nothing too serious. Little maintenance issues, but I feel better now. … It’s great to get it out of the way now. Make sure we stay hydrated with my canteen now.”

Renfroe, who will likely play in the outfield Sunday, hadn’t seen a ton of live pitching before Friday, so he was pleased with the walk in his first plate appearance. He worked a long at-bat the second time up before flying out to left. The third time, he might have “tried to hit it a little too hard.”