Royals shuffle pitching rotation: Harvey will start Sunday, Keller on Monday
The Kansas City Royals haven’t given up on Matt Harvey yet, and they haven’t taken him out of the starting rotation.
Harvey, 31, will start Sunday’s series finale against the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium despite having gone 0-2 with a 14.09 ERA and a 3.00 WHIP in four appearances (three starts). He has allowed 18 hits and five walks in 7 2/3 innings. He has also struck out six.
The Royals originally had right-hander Brad Keller scheduled to start Sunday’s game. Now, Keller will start Monday on the road against the Cleveland Indians with an extra day of rest.
Jakob Junis, who came out of his start Wednesday after being hit by a line drive, appears on track to make his next start Tuesday in Cleveland.
Harvey, the former All-Star starting pitcher for the New York Mets, had not pitched in a big-league game in more than a year when the Royals signed him to a minor-league contract in July and assigned him to their alternate training site.
Since being called up to the big-league roster, Harvey has made starts against the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Indians.
He had encouraging signs in the early stages of each of his first two starts before running into trouble in the third inning of both outings.
But his start against the Indians Tuesday night was rocky from the beginning. He allowed three runs in the first inning and two in the second. He allowed five runs and three homers in 1 1/3 innings.
By starting on Sunday, he’ll avoid facing the Indians’ lineup in a second consecutive outing.
Harvey will likely be more of an “opener,” and right-hander Carlos Hernandez could be asked to piggyback on Harvey’s start depending on the bullpen usage in Saturday night’s game. Hernandez pitched 3 2/3 innings in relief of Harvey Tuesday.
Harvey pitched 2/3 scoreless innings of relief Thursday night and allowed two hits.
“The focus on this pitch and the focus on this hitter, not that I have to get through this lineup three times for this to be successful,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of his expectation for Harvey. “I need to have my focus right. Not to say he hasn’t been focused. I just want to see him do something a little bit different here and kind of building off what we’ve seen him do a couple times in that first inning or that second inning or him coming in in relief in that one inning. How often can we repeat that?”
