Royals’ rookie Kris Bubic stared down Brewers lineup, but got short end of the stick
Rookie left-hander Kris Bubic faced against a Milwaukee Brewers lineup Saturday that had battered veteran lefty Danny Duffy one night earlier.
Bubic didn’t blink. But he was still the Royals’ hard-luck loser at Miller Park. The Brewers scored four runs against the Royals’ bullpen in the eighth inning for a 5-0 win.
The Royals (21-31) have now lost three of four. Royals Catcher Salvador Perez went 1 for 4 and saw the end of his streak of multi-hit games as well as his streak of games with an extra-base hit. Both streaks had gone six games. Royals hitters struck out 15 times.
“His best yet,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Bubic’s start. “That’s just one of those indicators of things to come, in my mind. He’s controlling the strike zone with the fastball early on. Then that was without question the best breaking ball he has had so far. It had bite to it that was late. He was throwing it for strikes.”
For the second consecutive start, Bubic (1-6) allowed one earned run or fewer. He pitched 5 1/3 innings and allowed one unearned on one hit and four walks against the Brewers (25-26). He also struck out seven.
Bubic credited his recent success to a focus on “not trying to do too much.”
“When I first got up here, the natural thing is to always want to do more or try to make things nastier than they need to be,” Bubic said.
Bubic has also now allowed two earned runs or fewer in seven of his nine starts. The only other American League rookie pitcher with seven starts of two earned runs or fewer is Minnesota’s Randy Dobnak.
“A few weeks ago — I think it was after the Twins outing at home where it didn’t go too well — that’s when we started this mindset of not trying to do too much in my bullpens and really working on getting my fastball down in the zone,” Bubic said. “For me, if I can dominate the bottom half of the zone and go up the ladder when I need to, that’s a lot more advantageous for me.”
He added that he’s more happy with hitting his spots at 80 percent of his maximum velocity than throwing harder and sacrificing command.
That focus certainly showed in the way Bubic got ahead in the count early. He threw 13 of 20 first-pitch strikes (65 percent).
Bubic didn’t give up a hit for the first three innings. The lone run against him came in the third on a Nicky Lopez throwing error.
Lopez fielded a ground ball up the middle and collided with shortstop Adalberto Mondesi as Mondesi attempted to cover second at the same time Lopez went to step on second base for the first out of a potential double play.
Lopez’s throw to first veered wildly off target and allowed the base runner Luis Urias to score instead of turning an inning-ending double play that would have left the Brewers without a run.
The error marked the Royals’ first error since Sept. 7, and snapped a season-high nine-game errorless streak.
Brewers starting pitcher Corbin Burnes entered the day with 1.98 ERA in 10 games (seven starts). He’s struck out 10 or more in three of his previous four starts.
Burnes struck out nine and allowed four hits without a walk in six scoreless innings.
“He had some deception, was hiding the ball well,” Matheny said. “The cutter, he was throwing backdoor to lefties and chasing righties off the plate. You don’t see many guys in the league that can spin the ball three different ways with the slider, the curveball and with the cutter and then have the higher velocity. That was a handful. We weren’t able to get much going.”
This story was originally published September 19, 2020 at 9:20 PM.
