An injury made Kansas City Royals pitcher Alec Marsh take the chip off his shoulder
Kansas City Royals right-hander Alec Marsh couldn’t help but keep pushing himself. His fiercely competitive nature had long since overridden any inclination to pace himself.
At least it had, until an arm injury forced Marsh to take a step back last year. He spent the better part of four months sidelined by a bicep injury/stress reaction to his humerus bone.
A 6-foot-2, 220-pound Arizona State product who is built like he could be at home on the gridiron terrorizing wide receivers who dare run routes over the middle, Marsh enters this spring fully healthy and with a new outlook. What he’d always approached as a mad dash to get to the major leagues has become more of a deliberate jaunt.
“It’s a long season,” Marsh said under the bright sun following Friday’s workout at the Royals training facility in Arizona. “I haven’t even experienced a full season. I didn’t make it past the first month last year, trying to make the team out of the gate.
“I already made the team. I’ve just got to get my work in. It doesn’t matter where I end up. I can keep working throughout the season and go out there and win games in June, July, August, September. That’s the main goal.”
The Royals’ third pick in the 2019 MLB Draft (70th overall), Marsh entered the organization one year after the draft class that included Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, Kris Bubic and Jonathan Heasley.
That quintet made history last year when they became the first five pitchers from the same class to start a game in the majors in the same season for the organization that drafted them.
The Royals need for top-flight homegrown starting pitching and the amount of draft capital spent on pitching in 2018 instantly made that group a focal point.
Marsh felt, almost from moment time he joined the organization, like he should be considered as part of that group. He took exception to any exclusion of him from the Royals’ young cadre of potential starters.
That served as part of the motivation for his huge strides during the pandemic shutdown. He emerged from pandemic having gotten stronger, throwing harder (upper 90s) and even more determined to prove himself.
When spring training 2021 came around, Marsh admittedly was going “110 percent” out of the gate.
“I knew I should be a part of that group, and I knew I had the stuff to be in that group,” Marsh said. “It was kind of something where I prove it every day no matter who I’m with, who I am around. It was really hard for me to learn to back off a little bit.
“This injury, that’s what it taught me. You have the stuff. You know where you belong. You belong with those guys. I know where I’m headed. My timeline — whatever it might be — as long as I just take it day-to-day and be myself and be happy playing the game again, it’s going to take care of itself.”
An injury and a lesson
Marsh’s bicep injury progressed gradually last year in spring training. Initially, he didn’t think it was anything aside from typical soreness, so he pushed through it intent to prove he had been underestimated.
By his fifth start for Double-A Northwest Arkansas, ignoring the ailment “caught up to him” and progressed to the point where he couldn’t keep throwing through it.
Marsh made four starts of at least five innings apiece (one six-inning start) to start the season. In those initial 21 innings, he struck out 34, allowed a .189 opponent’s batting average, recorded a 1.05 WHIP and a 3.86 ERA.
But then he went just 2 2/3 innings on June 3. After that, he didn’t pitch again until June 15, and went 1 2/3 innings before the Royals shut him down.
He stayed with Northwest Arkansas for a few weeks and after the Royals got imaging done on his arm, they determined that he didn’t need any sort of procedure or surgery. Rest and rehab were the recommended path.
Late last season while Marsh was on the mend, Heasley and Zerpa made their major-league debuts. Both spent time in the Double-A rotation as Marsh had.
“When those guys got up there I was so, so happy,” Marsh said. “I almost cried when Heasley got called up because he’s one of my best friends here. It was just awesome to see those guys up there because they really deserved it because of the year that they had. Amazing. Amazing teammates.
“It motivates you because you want to go play with them again. Not because I should be there instead of him. That’s not the case at all. I want to be up there winning with those guys.”
Marsh got back on the mound in a game setting with an appearance in the Arizona Fall League in October. He made one start, tossed 1 1/3 with three strikeouts and gave up a pair of home runs. The way he threw and the way his pitch repertoire rounded back into shape relatively quickly encouraged him.
After the one start in the fall, the Royals and Marsh decided to turn his focus towards spring training 2022.
“We had nothing to gain,” Royals senior director of pitching Paul Gibson said. “We weren’t going to get enough innings for it to matter much. So we just decided let’s push the reset button, do some delivery work. He worked his butt off like he always does, and he looks great. We feel strong about him right now.”
Gibson characterized Marsh’s desire to prove that he belonged every time he stepped on the mound, even for a bullpen session in spring training, as something all young pitchers go through.
Having spent time around guys of similar age who’ve had significant time in the majors like Singer and Bubic, tends to prompt competitive guys like Marsh to “get outside of your lane” a bit.
“I think he learned a valuable lesson,” Gibson said. “He’s a very mature guy, and he’s got a plan every day both in life and on the field. I think if you’re going to say an injury is a silver lining, that would be it.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
