Daniel Lynch exorcises demons against the White Sox as Kansas City Royals win series
Kansas City Royals rookie left-hander Daniel Lynch had just gotten a batter to flail at a slider for strike three to start the third inning, yet Lynch shook his head on the mound. The pitch ended up belt-high instead of in the dirt where catcher Cam Gallagher had called for it.
That brief moment provided a glimpse into just how far Lynch has come since his first stint in the majors earlier this season. He was so locked in that even his miscues weren’t damaging.
Thursday night served as a measuring-stick game as he took a significant step forward with a strong outing against a Chicago White Sox lineup that had bullied and battered him in his second big-league start earlier in the season.
This time around, Lynch took the fight to the bullies in their own ballpark as he pitched into the sixth inning and recorded seven strikeouts. The Royals bullpen backed him up in a 3-2 win in front of an announced 23,589 in the rubber match of the three-game set at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago on Thursday night.
“I just can’t say enough about how good of a transition he has made and an adjustment (he has made),” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “The time that he went down and worked on some things, he obviously worked on the right things. He came back and today I thought his slider was really good. He got some tough-looking swings from some really good hitters. So you could tell it had a lot of bite to it.”
Lynch (2-3) allowed one run on four hits and one walk. His seven strikeouts set a new career high.
In his last three starts since the Royals recalled him from the minors, Lynch has allowed four earned runs, walked four and struck out 13 in 19 innings.
The White Sox entered the day with the best winning percentage at home of any team in the majors (.667). The Royals went 5-4 in nine games this season on White Sox turf, their first winning record at Guaranteed Rate Field since 2016.
The win gave the Royals (47-60) their second series win over the AL Central-leading White Sox (63-46) in two weeks. The previous series was in KC.
After losing the first four games of the road trip, the Royals have won back-to-back games.
On May 8, the White Sox bombarded Lynch to the tune of eight runs in 2/3 of an inning, and they reveled in his growing pains.
“Obviously, it’s on your mind a little bit,” Lynch said. “I knew that I was going to have to battle. I tried to frame it that way and go like this is an opportunity to come back and get these guys back and, I think, really prove to myself that that doesn’t define who I am or who I am as a player. But I also didn’t want to give it too much power.”
That May match-up largely gave rise to the notion that something in Lynch’s delivery tipped hitters off as to which pitches he was throwing and enabled them to tee-off with reckless abandon despite a 97-mph fastball and a three-pitch mix.
Thursday night, Lynch’s lone hiccup in the first three innings came with two outs and an 0-2 count against last year’s AL MVP Jose Abreu. Lynch’s fastball stayed about belt high and over the heart of the plate, and Abreu deposited that in the center-field stands for a solo home run.
Lynch retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced as he largely cruised through three innings with the exception of Abreu’s homer.
“I felt like I was spinning the ball really well, so I used that,” Lynch said. “I commanded my fastball pretty well in the first innings there, and I made good pitches. So I felt like I did a good job.”
The pivotal moment came when Lynch successfully navigated his way into and out of trouble in the fourth.
After yielding a leadoff single, he retired the next two batters to pull within an out of ending the inning. Then he walked a batter and hit another in the foot with a pitch, loading the bases.
Lynch went to a full count against Adam Engel, but he got Engel to swing and miss at a 96-mph fastball located low and on the outside corner to end the inning and strand the bases loaded in a 2-1 game.
Lynch fist-pumped as he walked off the mound.
“(Cam Gallagher) knows these guys really well, and he is able to see the game in a way that I’m still trying to learn,” Lynch said. “I was kind of just trying to lean on that. Then he gave me a fastball down and away. I just threw it as hard as I could to the spot. It went where I wanted it, thankfully.
“I was really fired up. I typically try not to show any emotion and try to stay cool, but I kind of got fired up on that one because that was a big pitch.”
The Royals gave Lynch a two-run lead early after a two-out single by Salvador Perez and a walk by Hunter Dozier put two men on for Emmanuel Rivera in the first inning.
Rivera lined a two-run double over the head of Engel in center field that gave Lynch a 2-0 lead to work with.
With the score 2-1 in the seventh, Edward Olivares homered for the third time in five games (four starts) since being recalled from the minors by the Royals on July 31. His drive to right-center just barely got out of the reach of a leaping Engel at the wall to make the score 3-1.
Josh Staumont, Greg Holland, Scott Barlow and Jake Brentz each pitched an inning of relief for KC. Barlow gave up one run on Eloy Jimenez’s two-out RBI double in the eighth inning. Brentz retired the side in order in the ninth and recorded his first save in the majors.
This story was originally published August 5, 2021 at 10:27 PM.
