Daniel Lynch grabs fifth spot in Kansas City Royals’ rotation over Brady Singer
The fifth spot in the Kansas City Royals’ starting pitching rotation goes to left-hander Daniel Lynch and former top pick Brady Singer will move to the bullpen in a “hybrid role” to start the season.
Lynch, who made his major-league debut last season, made a strong case during spring training for a spot in the rotation. But the Royals entered camp with as many as nine viable options for five spots.
Lynch is slated to start the first game of a two-game I-70 interleague series against the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
Lynch had been viewed by some as the best prospect of the Royals group of minor-league pitchers, but it wasn’t clear how the competition for rotation spots would shake out after veteran Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke and rotation mainstay Brad Keller.
“We talk about competing in the spring training, it can’t just be lip service,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “... For the most part we’ve got a lot of young guys who truly need to go about this business like they’ve got to earn it every day.
“Yes, there’s probably a more comfortable way to go about it, but it’s real. Go earn it. Go work for it. Go fight for it. In the end, trust us to do the right thing — what’s right for the club and what’s right for the individual player.”
The Royals shuffled their pitching plans last May in order to pave the way for Lynch to break into the rotation. At the time, they moved Jakob Junis from the rotation to the bullpen to make room for Lynch.
Lynch ran into trouble in his first few starts as tipping pitches proved an issue. He returned to the minors to clean up those issues and showed significant improvement when he came back to the majors later in the season.
He had a particularly strong stretch immediately upon his return when he went 4-1 in seven starts with a 2.23 ERA. The Royals won six of his seven starts during that run. He followed that stretch by going 0-3 in five September starts with an 8.69 ERA.
Lynch became the first Royal to start 15 games in his first big league season since Brad Keller started 20 in 2018.
“Very pleased with the progression Daniel made through spring training,” Matheny said. “I thought he did a very nice job of working on things he needed to work on to be more consistent with all four pitches. Did exactly what we asked for, pounding the strike zone, controlling the running game, repeating his mechanics. The things we kind of sent him into his offseason work to do. He did a very good job of doing those.”
Singer, the 18th overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft and the first pick of the Royals, had logged the most major-league innings of the club’s young crop of pitchers.
He was the first of the group — which includes Kris Bubic, Carlos Hernández, Jackson Kowar, Jonathan Heasley, Angel Zerpa and Lynch — to break into the majors during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Last season, Singer made a career-high 27 starts — one off of the team lead — and he held opponents to two earned runs or fewer in 16 of those starts.
Among players who debuted in 2020, Singer ranks first in starts (39) and innings (192.2) as well as third in strikeouts (192) behind Tarik Skubal (201) and Trevor Rogers (196).
“(Singer) is going to be in the bullpen right now,” Matheny said. “A lot like the conversation with Jackson Kowar. We see you as starters. Both of you.
“Going into this shortened spring, we didn’t know how many guys we were going to need stretched out. We are very happy with the progression of all of our pitchers, but we’re still going to need some guys that can pick up innings for us. It’s great that we have the expanded roster, and we’re going to use that with guys that can take up some innings. Then, let’s just watch how this plays out. It could be a one-inning stint. It could be multiple innings. It could be a spot start.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 2:18 PM.
