Third try was a charm as Jon Heasley got his first win with the Kansas City Royals
Kansas City Royals rookie right-hander Jonathan Heasley didn’t expect to find himself in the majors to finish this season. But since he did have a big-league uniform on, he figured he might as well go ahead and get that first win out of the way.
Heasley tossed 5 1/3 innings as the Royals collected an 11-6 victory against the Minnesota Twins on Friday night at Kauffman Stadium. The 24-year-old who’d primarily been focused on trying to get to the Double-A postseason up until two weeks ago, earned the win in his final start of the season.
“It’s pretty crazy how fast everything comes at you,” Heasley said. “Two weeks ago, I was throwing in Double-A, and now here we are tonight and I got the first win under the belt. I’m super excited, just happy for the opportunity. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.”
While he’s been in the majors, his teammates at Double-A Northwest Arkansas won the championship. So he killed two birds with one stone in the final weeks of the season.
He spent 2019 at Low-A Lexington where he went 8-5 with a 3.12 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and .222 batting average against in 25 games (20 starts) during his first full season of professional baseball.
Last season, there was no minor-league season.
Heasley, a former 13th-round draft pick (2018), came up from Double-A on September 17. Prior to his promotion, he compiled a 7-3 record with a 3.33 ERA, 120 strikeouts, 34 walks, 1.22 WHIP, in 22 games (21 starts) and 105 1/3 innings with Northwest Arkansas.
In his three starts in the majors, he has posted a 1-1 record with a 4.91 ERA, six strikeouts and three walks in 14 2/3 innings pitched.
“I’m blessed with the opportunity, and to be where I am today it has just been a ton of hard work,” Heasley said. “Obviously, everybody’s goal is to make it to the big leagues. Sometimes it happens when you don’t expect it, but I feel like you’ve just got to try to make the most of the opportunities you get because you never know when it’s going to be your last. So I just wanted to come up here and give it my best. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job. Hopefully, we’ll be back ready to rock next year.”
Friday, Heasley didn’t give up a run until the fourth inning. He gave up one in the fourth, and then he gave up three in the sixth before the bullpen took over.
“I thought he did a great job of staying on the edges,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Heasley’s performance on Friday night. “He didn’t make too many mistakes. Even the double down the line to [Byron] Buxton, that’s on the black inside. The ball came back a little bit on the ball [Josh] Donaldson hit.
“Overall, not a lot of mistakes until he got tired. He hit a wall pretty quick, and that’s completely understandable. He was kind of being de-conditioned before he got here. We tried to camp him back up. ... But when he hit the wall, he hit the wall. Unfortunately, we let a couple more runs come in before we got him out.”
