Slump and injury behind him, Jakob Junis returns to his old ways for Royals

It just wasn’t like him.

Royals starting pitcher Jakob Junis had never been one to allow home runs at a clip so frequent the ball flew out of ballparks at a rate of 2.9 per nine innings.

Yet that was the version of Junis the Royals saw from May 28 to July 2, a span in which Junis lost all seven of his starts as he allowed 13 homers and 34 earned runs in 40 1/3 innings. He bottomed out on July 2 against the Indians at Kauffman Stadium, nine runs (eight earned) crossing the plate as Francisco Lindor clubbed both a grand slam and a three-run homer to account for most of the damage.

Junis landed on the disabled list because of lower back inflammation the next day. Discomfort had caused him to lose control of his vaunted slider. The pitch so often slipped from his right hand that it spun on its way into the zone.

But since returning from the disabled list on July 21, Junis hasn’t run into that problem. He’s healthy and back in command of a pitch that made him the team’s most successful starter and encouraging storyline during the first two months of this now 89-loss season. He demonstrated such progress again in Wednesday’s 6-3 loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field.

“It’s been encouraging to have some consistent starts in a row,” said Junis, who has allowed 14 earned runs and just two home runs in 36 1/3 innings since rejoining the rotation. “I was slumping pretty hard, so to bounce back and have some strong ones since the All-Star break, it’s encouraging to finish this season strong.”

Junis was saddled with his 12th loss of the season despite allowing just two earned runs among the four he was charged over 5 2/3 innings of work. He wasn’t completely without fault, as the Rays knocked nine hits against him, three of them for doubles.

But on a night where his slider dived so often out of the way of bat paths he induced 12 swinging strikes, and on a night where a defensive lapse by Whit Merrifield made way for two unearned runs to score in the sixth, Junis deserved a better fate.

It seemed for a moment in the second inning that luck might fall Junis’ way. The Royals had successfully challenged a call that Willy Adames was safe at first base, giving them a double play to erase a leadoff hit. Junis had thrown only two pitches in the inning and already had gotten two outs. He seemed destined to escape the inning unscathed.

But catcher Michael Perez squared up a sinker and sent it up the middle for a single, right-fielder Carlos Gomez ripped the fourth pitch he saw up the third-base line, where a diving Dozier couldn’t stop it from becoming a double, and both scored on a right-field single from Brandon Lowe.

Junis, who did not issue a walk for just the second time this season, retired 11 of the next 14 batters he faced before allowing two base runners in the sixth inning. The second runner scored even after Junis turned the ball over to reliever Tim Hill, who had allowed only 11 of 39 inherited runners to cross the plate this season.

Despite the final outcome, Junis is back on track.

“It’s not encouraging,” manager Ned Yost said. “I’ve got a good feeling about Jake, so I don’t need to be encouraged. This is what I expect out of Jake. I expect him to go out and make starts like this. I expect him to execute pitches and have a good slider and keep us in the game, just like he did tonight.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2018 at 10:13 PM.