Pitcher Danny Duffy will start for the Kansas City Royals Wednesday at Yankee Stadium
Veteran left-hander Danny Duffy will make his return to the Kansas City Royals’ starting rotation Wednesday night against the New York Yankees in the Bronx.
Royals manager Mike Matheny announced that Duffy, who went on the injured list May 17 (retroactive to May 14) with a left-forearm flexor strain, will start the second game of a three-game series in Yankee Stadium.
The Royals will have to make a roster move sometime before Wednesday’s game to officially reinstate Duffy from the IL and make room for him on the active roster.
“I’m really thankful they didn’t send me off on a rehab assignment,” Duffy said. “I really think that I could get outs here right now and be good, and be great for this team — be a benefit. I’m glad that they’re of that mindset, too.”
Duffy last pitched in a major-league game on May 12 against the Detroit Tigers.
It’s not clear what sort of pitch count he’ll be on for his start on Wednesday, but he threw a 40-pitch live batting practice session on Friday at Kauffman Stadium.
Duffy said he wasn’t aware what sort of restrictions he might be under for his first start back.
“I’m going to go until they tell me to come out,” Duffy said.
Earlier this season, Jakob Junis threw an incredibly-efficient 58-pitch outing that covered five scoreless innings against the Cleveland Indians when he hadn’t been completely stretched out.
Through seven starts this season, Duffy has a 4-3 record with a 1.94 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, a .222 opponent’s batting average, 48 strikeouts and 12 walks in 41 2/3 innings. At the time, he had the seventh-best ERA among qualifying pitchers in the majors.
He’d been in the midst of one of the best stretches of his career.
“If I wasn’t confident in what I’m going out to do tomorrow, that I couldn’t excel to the best of my ability, then I wouldn’t be going out there tomorrow,” Duffy said. “I’m a firm believer that I could go out there and get stuff done. My expectation is to take it one pitch at a time, but, hopefully, pick up right where I left off. I mean that’s what I’ve worked so hard for. That’s my expectation every time out regardless of how much time has been off.”
Duffy’s return to the rotation gives the Royals’ pitching staff much-needed reinforcement with Kris Bubic and Jackson Kowar moved to the bullpen, where they’ll be available to throw extended outings in relief.
For the time being, the burden of eating up innings and trying to save the bullpen from being exhausted on a nightly basis has fallen upon left-hander Mike Minor and right-hander Brad Keller.
With Duffy on the IL and Junis in the minors, Minor and Keller had been the only two Kansas City starters with more than a truncated season’s worth of experience in the majors.
“It will be good to get him back in the mix,” Matheny said. “It conquers, kind of, the thing we’ve been working on too — helping some of these younger guys get through the early part of the game. Whether it’s the first part of the lineup or it’s the first innings, we’re trying to be proactive. This allows a couple of things, getting Duff back in that mix, getting Duffy his innings and also trying to help some of the younger guys learn on the job.”
