A promising debut
Lynch showed potential, but missteps from the bullpen and wasted opportunities on offense condemn the Royals to a loss.
The Royals are entering a dangerous stretch of their schedule. Entering Monday atop the Central by a game and a half and with the best overall record, they are playing within their division exclusively for the next two weeks. It’s an opportunity to but some breathing room between themselves and their rivals. If they should stumble, they could easily find themselves trying to make up lost ground.
After dropping two of three in Minnesota but ultimately capping a strong road trip, the Royals returned to The K on Monday. They dropped the opener of their seven-game homestand to Cleveland by a scoreline of 8-6.
The focus on Monday was the major league debut of lefty Daniel Lynch, the Royals’ most touted pitching prospect in years. There gets to be so much hype surrounding these starts that it’s difficult to remember Lynch hasn’t started a competitive game since September, 2019 in the Carolina League playoffs. According to the Royals’ PR department, that’s a stretch of 601 days. (Although he did pitch in the Arizona Fall League after that to make up for some lost time.)
Plus, Lynch has never thrown a pitch above High-A, working just 78 innings in Wilmington in 2019. Sure he’s put in his reps in the alternate site and the Royals worked to groom him for this moment in spring training, but it’s a big jump to suddenly find yourself in The Show.
As far as debuts go, Lynch was fine. He didn’t bring the adrenaline like I thought, topping out at 97 mph, but he was able to generally maintain his velocity through the night, ultimately averaging 95 mph on the heater. He kept the focus on his fastball/slider combo, throwing just nine changeups and a pair of curves. The Cleveland batters mostly spit on those, choosing to hunt the fastball. That was where they had the most success, putting 10 four-seamers in play with four going for hits.
He was a bit wild at times, missing up with the fastball and wide on the glove side with the slider.
And when he was in the zone and the Cleveland batters were swinging, they were making hard contact. Of the 14 balls put into play against Lynch, half had an exit velocity of 100 mph or greater.
It’s not easy to battle control and dodge high exit velocity. It’s a toxic mix. So Lynch did well to survive for 4 2/3 innings.
There were positives. Lynch spun 28 sliders on the night. He got 14 swings and six whiffs off the pitch, a whiff rate of 43 percent. When it was working, the slider was as-advertised: A spinner with late break and sharp bite that could befuddle hitters when located low in the zone.
Check out the destruction of Josh Naylor for his first career strikeout.
The stuff was electric at times. The fastball was lively and the slider had that aforementioned bite. The change looked promising, but the Cleveland hitters weren’t fishing for that.
A sequence I really liked came in the first inning against Amed Rosario. Lynch jumped ahead with a fastball and then came back with another one that was elevated out of the zone. Rosario will chase that pitch and while Salvador Perez set his target up and in and Lynch delivered up and away, he still got a swing and a foul.
Ahead 0-2, Lynch attacked down and in with a pair of sliders that weren’t strikes, but Rosario needed to battle off since he was behind in the count.
That’s a great pitch in that situation. Rosario is fortunate he was able to foul off two in that location to stay alive.
Finally, Lynch went back to the high fastball. This time, he hit the target provided by Perez to record the out.
A nice, basic sequence where you could see how Lynch can be effective mixing that high velocity fastball with the biting slider.
After the game, Lynch discussed his feelings when going out to the mound for the first time.
“I felt like I could barely see,” Lynch said. “I was so juiced up.”
Ha! Apparently the rush of adrenaline was there. And it was blinding.
“It was amazing. It was obviously the most people I’ve thrown in front of,” Lynch continued. “The loudest the stadium’s ever been after an out. I was so shocked after that first out, how loud it was. It was just a really amazing experience. I’m super thankful.”
Lynch’s comments underscore just difficult it can be to assess a big league debut. There were some good things we saw and some other things that weren’t so good. Lynch got into trouble in the first with back-to-back walks with two outs. He maneuvered out of a jam following a leadoff double (and some sort of ginned-up balk call) in the second. His defense bailed him out with a double play in the third, but couldn’t do the same in the fifth.
The potential remains the same and nothing Lynch did will move that needle in a negative fashion. It was a solid, if unspectacular, first start. And that’s a good result. It was enough that we can look forward to his next turn, tentatively scheduled on Saturday against the White Sox.
Bullpen can’t bring the relief
If we’ve learned anything from Matheny’s bullpen management, it’s that he makes liberal use of the fireman role. A starter gets into trouble and the Royals need an out, he’ll call on a reliever to close out that inning. Then he’ll pivot to another reliever for a clean start to a frame and an outing where he may pitch multiple innings.
That was the the plan for how Matheny would use his bullpen on Monday. Scott Barlow threw 13 pitches in a rough outing on Sunday in Minnesota. He was Matheny’s choice to protect a two-run lead in the fifth. It didn’t work as he threw a wild pitch and then surrendered a single to Franmil Reyes to tie the game. Sometimes, plans don’t work.
They were able to get Jakob Junis into a game he had been scheduled to start. Perhaps he would’ve been a better option than Barlow to stamp out the embers that were sparking in the fifth, but Junis has been starting of late and if the Royals are looking to get length from Junis out of the bullpen, the proper time to bring him into the game is when they brought him in…at the start of a fresh inning.
It worked for an inning.
Junis couldn’t get the cutter/slider to move effectively in the seventh. He was cautious to Jose Ramirez with a runner on first and lost him to a walk. After striking out Reyes on three pitches, he spun a 2-2 pitch high and tight to Eddie Rosario. It just didn’t have the movement he needed in that location.
The usage in the middle innings was familiar and had it gone according to plan, perhaps we’d be discussing a Royals victory. But Barlow couldn’t get out of his inning and Junis gave up a couple of dingers. It was deficit the Royals couldn’t overcome.
Wasted opportunities
The Royals had a baserunner in every single inning on Monday. Six runs is a solid tally, one that should win you more games than not. But they really wasted a few opportunities.
In the second, the loaded the bases on the back of a pair of singles and a walk. But with two outs, Whit Merrifield hit a grounder to short to end the threat.
In the sixth they again loaded the bases after two singles and a walk. This time it was Andrew Benintendi who grounded out to close the inning.
Overall, the Royals left 10 on base and were 3-12 with runners in scoring position.
That’s not to say the offense didn’t get some things accomplished. Hunter Dozier may be getting hot. He tripled in the fourth and scored on a Whit Merrifield home run. Then in the seventh with two runners on and two out, Dozier blasted into left. Play this one with the sound up.
It was a center-cut fastball that arrived at the plate at 96 mph. It departed at 109 mph.
That cut the Royals’ deficit to two, but they couldn’t muster any further offense in the eighth and ninth innings.
But this was really about those six runners left on base in the second and sixth innings. A hit in the second maybe chases Cleveland starter Aaron Civale a little earlier and gives the Royals a large early cushion. A hit in the sixth breaks a 3-3 deadlock and maybe adjusts the way Matheny manages his bullpen or how Junis approaches hitters. Ahhh…the great hypothetical unknown. At any rate, a hit in either of those situations would’ve changed the game in the Royals’ favor.
Roster moves
In order to make space for Lynch on the 40-man roster, the Royals moved Daniel Tillo to the 60-day IL. It’s kind of strange that it took the Royals a month to shift Tillo over there given that he’s recovering from Tommy John surgery, but I’m sure they felt they could get some of their other players through waivers earlier in the season after teams scramble to set their Opening Day rosters. To make room on the active roster, the club sent Jake Newberry to Triple-A.
Newberry has not pitched well at all in his action with the team this year. He’s made four appearances, thrown 4.1 innings and allowed 10 hits, three walks and eight runs. Matheny has used him in extremely low leverage situations, but he’s allowed either inherited runners to score or, as noted above, runs of his own doing to cross the plate in each of his four outings. Basically, whenever he’s pitched, he’s extended a deficit.
The Royals also placed Cam Gallagher on the seven-day concussion list. He took back to back fouls off the mask on Sunday. Probably not great that the Royals didn’t pull him when it happened. Sebastian Rivero is the third catcher on the 40-man and was recalled. He spent most of 2019 at Wilmington, hitting .212/.270/.278.
Central issues
Texas 5, Minnesota 6
The Rangers rallied for five runs in the eighth and ninth innings, but came up just one short. Kenta Maeda went 5.1 scoreless, but saw his pitch count elevate. Alex Kirilloff continues to rake with two hits and three runs scored.
Light schedule in the Central on Monday means minimal movement in the standings.
The Royals have held or shared the lead in the Central for 26 of the 33 days of the 2021 season.
Up next
The Royals will try to avoid their first extended losing streak of the season. They’ve dropped back to back games three times now this season, but have yet to lose three in a row. Mike Minor will try to get the Royals back into the win column against Sam Hentges. First pitch at 7:10.
Great work Craig recapping Lynch's debut! I agree that he was basically so so, but not bad for a debut. I'm a little worried that the train might be close to a derailment. The hitting and defense continues to be hit and miss and last night was another great example of such. A couple timely hits and better defense and we are talking about Lynch getting his 1st MLB victory. Whit has to make that throw on the double play. To me though the more frustrating defensive miscue was the wild pitch by Barlow, at least that's how it was scored. In my opinion that was a pitch that Salvy got lazy on, which he does from time to time trying to glove it instead of making an effort to slide over and block. In the end does it make a difference if the inning ended 3-2 instead of 3-3 I don't know. I kind of feel like tonight is a must win with Bieber going tomorrow. Need a solid outing from Minor and our bats to rough up the rookie!