Blowout loss shows Kansas City Royals young pitchers’ growing pains aren’t behind them
With left-hander Kris Bubic’s short start and rough outings for right-handers Jackson Kowar and Brady Singer, Sunday wasn’t the best moment for the Kansas City Royals’ much-touted draft class of 2018 — the crop of young pitchers who’ve become the face of the team’s recent rebuilding efforts.
Of course, they all still figure to play prominent roles in the future success of the club. They’ve all also had high points along the way either in the majors or the minors if not both.
The Royals’ 17-3 loss to the Cleveland Guardians at Kauffman Stadium just reinforced that the growing pains of their young pitchers aren’t yet in the rearview mirror.
Bubic allowed five runs, three hits and two walks in two-thirds of an inning.
“I think any outing of the season that goes like this is pretty frustrating whether it’s the first, middle or last, because you always want to give the team a chance to win,” Bubic said.
“That’s your No. 1 goal as a pitcher, whether you’re a starter or reliever. And I took us out of the game pretty early. I just want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
On Sunday, Bubic simply couldn’t command his pitches. The first three batters of the game reached base, including a leadoff walk, and that proved a recipe for disaster. He threw 29 pitches and less than half, 14, for strikes.
Once he got to two outs, he gave up a single and then walked the last batter he faced to load the bases.
“When he did find the plate, he was behind in counts and good hitters are going to make you pay right there,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Bubic’s struggles to find the strike zone.
Bubic had an impressive finish to his 2021 season — 3-1 with a 3.12 ERA in eight appearances from Aug. 21 through the end of the season — and looked strong during spring training in Arizona.
“You never want to start the year out like that, on that kind of note,” Bubic said.
He wasn’t the only one who had a rocky season debut.
Starters-turned-relievers Kowar (seven runs and 11 hits allowed in 3 1/3 innings) and Singer (four runs and six hits in three innings) each pitched in relief and were also tagged by Guardians hitters.
Kowar said pitching in a long relief role out of the bullpen felt “normal,” and he approached it similarly to a start with the aim of getting as deep into the outing as possible. Kowar was optioned to Triple-A Omaha before Monday’s series finale as the Royals reinstated reliever Joel Payamps from the family medical emergency list.
Matheny went to veteran reliever Taylor Clarke to get out of the first inning, which gave Kowar time to get loose and warm up before taking the mound in the second inning.
Along with the 11 hits he allowed, Kowar struck out four and walked only one.
“In that role, I need to eat up more than 10 outs,” Kowar said. “It’s one thing to be throwing strikes. It’s another thing to be getting guys out. So I felt like I was pretty clean with my delivery, but a lot to work on as far as getting deeper into that game and saving the bullpen more than I did.”
Kowar said he’d have to watch video to have a better understanding of what got him in so much trouble.
“I felt like they were putting some good swings on stuff the whole time,” Kowar said. “A couple got through here and there, but I felt like they were on me pretty good. I haven’t seen the video yet, but I felt like they were taking some good swings on some good pitches throughout the whole outing.”
Both Kowar and Singer tossed scoreless innings during their outings.
Kowar retired three of the four batters he faced in his second inning on the mound, including an inning-ending strikeout of the Guardians’ best hitter Jose Ramirez.
Singer retired the side in order on three grounders to the infield in the ninth.
“I saw some good, obviously not enough,” Matheny said. “They’re both in a different spot than they’ve ever been in. That’s challenging. I get it. But we need them to come in and eat up innings. They did do that. I thought Gabe (Speier) was really good today. Gabe did a really nice job. Both the other guys have things they know they need to work on. It’s going to come back to fastball command.
“Then a couple times it was getting into good counts and not being able to put guys away with secondary (pitches) that they left too much on the plate. It’s always hard for young pitchers. They get amped up, first outing, first time out, that’s part of learning. Unfortunately, it cost some runs today.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2022 at 7:35 PM.
