Starting pitching continues to plague resilient Royals

The fear is the unknown. The scary stuff happens when there is no answer, at least not immediately, no buffer or guardrail to keep the mind from going to the worst scenarios.

Because the Royals’ most talented starting pitcher lost feeling in his thumb and two fingers. Bad scenarios don’t take much imagination.

The Royals have the best record in the American League, still. They lead what some are calling baseball’s best division, somehow, so first-place problems sure beat the alternative.

But, they are still problems, and as far as problems go, Yordano Ventura being removed after just three innings for what is being called right hand weakness is a doozy.

For at least a night, a 4-0 loss to the Cardinals here on Friday was the least of the Royals’ concerns.

“I’m going, ‘Right hand weakness? What are we talking about?” Royals manager Ned Yost says. “We don’t know. We have to find out.”

Yost has never heard of such a thing. He says the trainers hadn’t, either, and this is unlike anything Ventura has experienced. He’s had a bizarre season, already, his starts ending from an eccentric list of causes ranging from ejections to cramps. In the minor leagues, he suffered from carpal tunnel, but this is different.

“He feels bad about it,” says Christian Colon, translating for Ventura. “He’s concerned.”

Ventura has escaped from scary moments before. Last May, he walked off the mound holding his elbow but missed just one start. On opening day, he writhed in pain from what was diagnosed as a thumb cramp.

But there was a bit of a dark mood around this particular moment that didn’t exist in those others, mostly because of the lack of answers. Ventura said he didn’t know what caused his fingers to go numb, and that the trainers did not have answers either.

He did not sound optimistic about the immediate future.

“It’s not that big of a difference to really think he’s going to go out there and pitch again (in his next scheduled start),” Colon says. “It feels a little better. Not much better.”

The whole thing is made scarier because Ventura hasn’t been pitching well. He has now thrown six innings, total, in his last two starts. His fastball velocity was down on Friday, and has been all season. He is missing fewer bats, and giving up more hard contact.

His ERA sits at 4.68, almost exactly a run and a half higher than last year. This is only his second full big league season, and the first with real expectations. He is the youngest player on the roster. Club officials preach patience, both publicly and privately, and of the need to allow Ventura to grow into his prodigious talent.

But, 12 starts into a five-year contract, he is also a reminder of the perilousness of young pitchers. The Royals are honest and justified when they defend Ventura’s struggles by mentioning his age and inexperience, but winning teams do not give long-term commitments and opening day starts to pitchers they don’t expect to rely on.

This further amplifies the Royals’ most significant big picture problem – yes, including the offense’s ongoing slump – because combined with Danny Duffy’s struggles their top two starting pitchers have combined for a 5.06 ERA.

That the Royals are still winning is a loud testament to their significant strengths, most obviously a dynamite defense and lockdown bullpen.

But they have something else going for them, a carryover from last year that has been somewhat overlooked amid all the talk about fights and Mike Moustakas’ emergence and more recently the All-Star voting.

This is a remarkably resilient group. More than anything else, that is the characteristic that has defined them for the last 13 months – the miserable May, being below .500 after the All-Star break, and then the run to the seventh game of the World Series.

Even with the loss on Friday, they are 104-58 over their last 162 games, including the playoffs.

In a way, the Royals showed a little bit of that spirit on Friday. After Ventura left, Joe Blanton, Franklin Morales, and Ryan Madson kept the deficit at two runs before a misplayed ball in the outfield led to two Cardinals runs in the eighth. It’s worth noting that Blanton now has four straight scoreless outings covering eight innings.

The offense stalled, again, and even after seven runs in a win over the Twins the game before, a team-wide slump has now covered enough ground to be concerning.

But the most significant worry for the Royals remains the starting rotation. James Shields struggled in the postseason, giving many Royals fans an underwhelming final impression, but the poor showings so far by Ventura and Duffy highlight Shields greatest strength – reliability.

Edinson Volquez has been terrific, and Chris Young a revelation. But even the most optimistic in-house projection on Young is not as a permanent starter.

The Royals are being let down by their best starting pitcher. Ventura’s growth into that role is perhaps being unfairly sped up and highlighted by factors out of his control – Shields’ absence and the Royals’ success – but that’s part of the job description now.

If he’s healthy, they sure could use the guy they invested that contract for.

The Royals, finally, are able to approach these types of problems from the high ground. It’s a lot easier to navigate through obstacles without the weight of desperation from a losing season.

But on Friday, they had another reminder about the precariousness of winning big league games. And if Ventura is injured, they will have another test of their resiliency.

This story was originally published June 12, 2015 at 10:14 PM with the headline "Starting pitching continues to plague resilient Royals."