What Royals reliever Lucas Erceg said after leaving Tigers game with foot injury
Kansas City Royals reliever Lucas Erceg exited Friday’s game against the Detroit Tigers after being hit on the foot by a line drive.
Erceg faced Tigers star Riley Greene in the seventh inning. Greene hit a baseball back up the middle that clipped Erceg’s foot. Erceg immediately went down in pain and had trouble regaining his balance.
“Felt huge vibrations up my leg,” Erceg said. “So my leg felt like it completely shut off. And that’s what kind of scared me the most. After 20 minutes or so, the numbness and stinging kind of went away. Now, more or less just stiff and bruised.”
The line drive had a 109.1 mph exit velocity off the bat.
The Royals training staff rushed to the mound. Erceg was down for a few moments before being helped to the dugout.
The Royals said that Erceg suffered a foot contusion. X-rays did not show any further damage.
“We are just going to take it day to day,” Erceg said. “I don’t think it’s going to require an IL stint as of right now. So we are going to keep doing the treatment and go from there.”
Royals manager Matt Quatraro inserted left-handed reliever Angel Zerpa as Erceg’s replacement.
Erceg entered Friday’s game with 6 2/3 scoreless innings in eight appearances. After the game, Erceg was glad to receive positive news regarding the injury.
“I just wanted to make sure I could get off the field, go get it looked at and evaluated,” Erceg said. “Kind of go from there. I’m in high hopes I’ll be good in X amount of days. I don’t know how long that’s going to be. But I have played through worse when I was a position player and this isn’t going to really stop me from getting back out there and getting some wins with the team.”
The Royals showed concern for Erceg after the game. Quatraro said the ball clipped Erceg’s in-step as it ricocheted off his foot. The injury will come down to pain tolerance as Erceg gets treatment and further evaluation.
“In-step but towards the bottom of the foot,” Quatraro said of the injury. “Not high towards the in-step but more towards the ground.”
Still, Quatraro acknowledged it was a scary situation in the moment.
“He crumpled and he tried to put some weight on it,” Quatraro said. “He said (he) kind of felt it run up his leg, you know, the shock of it. And thankfully coming up and hearing that postgame is a big relief.”
The Royals are already without two relievers in Hunter Harvey and Sam Long. Both players were placed on the 15-day injured list during the road trip. Harvey is nursing a right teres major strain and Long is dealing with left elbow inflammation.
Erceg is likely to be down for a short period. They Royals will turn to available relievers John Schreiber, Daniel Lynch IV and possibly Evan Sisk or Steven Cruz to fill the void. The club also has confidence in Zerpa to also pitch in high-leverage situations.
“We will see how it feels tomorrow morning when everything settles in,” Erceg said, “and go from there.”
This story was originally published April 18, 2025 at 8:07 PM.
