It’s early, but this Royal with up/down career is leading KC’s starting pitchers
A year ago, the Royals’ starting pitching was a revelation that would be hard to replicate.
With a combined ERA of 3.55, second in the American League, the group was the most fundamental difference in the franchise going from 106 losses to 86 wins and its first postseason appearance since 2015.
So, sure, it was easy to feel good about the core four returning: AL Cy Young finalists Seth Lugo (second) and Cole Ragans (fourth), Michael Wacha (13-8 with a 3.35 ERA) and Michael Lorenzen — who had a 1.57 ERA in six starts and a relief appearance after being acquired at the trade deadline.
But in the wake of trading Brady Singer to Cincinnati for leadoff man Jonathan India, the fifth spot was a looming offseason X-factor, if not concern, as the Royals seek to return to the postseason.
Micro-snapshot of the season that it might be, that dynamic has played out better than anyone might have forecast through Kris Bubic’s exhilarating first two starts of the season.
The second of those was a 4-1 win over Baltimore on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, where Bubic extended his 2025 scoreless innings streak to 12 before his seventh-inning wild pitch allowed Baltimore’s lone run — a run further enabled by Hunter Renfroe misplaying a fly ball in the right-field corner into a triple.
“It is what it is,” Bubic said, smiling but still frustrated with himself. “You’re not going to give up zero runs all year.”
Still, the 27-year-old Bubic — in a starting role again for the first time since he suffered a season-ending injury in April 2023 — so far is setting the pace for a group of four one-time All-Stars.
No wonder manager Matt Quatraro says he’s not sure who counts as what number in the rotation.
“I know there’s a lot made out of who starts opening day and who’s fifth, but these guys are all going to make 30-plus starts hopefully, right?” he said. “And so once the season gets going, I lose track of who’s one and who’s four, who’s five.”
However you break it down, Bubic is the first Royals starter to win his first two outings of the season since Danny Duffy in 2021.
And even if it’s a mere glimpse of one segment of the season, the initial development is right up there with the play of Maikel Garcia in the category of pleasant surprises that the Royals are going to need to augment the anticipated givens.
Like the anticipated encores of AL MVP-runner up Bobby Witt Jr. (a home run away from the cycle on Sunday), Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez. The table-setting of India. And the fire-breathing three-headed right-handed back end of the bullpen — Hunter Harvey, Lucas Erceg and Carlos Estevez — that went unscathed again on Sunday.
And, of course, the rotation that Bubic has rejoined with a certain undaunted presence through a precarious path since being rapid-fired from A-ball to the majors in 2020.
Through all of his ups and downs, including an 11-29 career record with a 4.66 ERA entering the season and Tommy John surgery in 2023, Bubic’s resolve has empowered him to alchemize even the most trying aspects of the journey into a mental advantage.
Long after the game Sunday, I asked him about what it felt like to get to this point through it all.
His answer was revealing.
The injury time, he said, had been “almost like a nice reset.”
Despite what surely had to be some angst and frustration, Bubic stressed that he really wasn’t deflated by it.
Instead of allowing himself the woe of feeling he’d been injured just as things seemed to be turning with three fine starts to open that season, Bubic sustained himself with the thought that he had achieved “a sense of belonging (and) a sense of, ‘OK, this is how I pitch in the big leagues to get guys out consistently.’”
That informed his approach as he went through the arduous rehabilitation and came to think of himself as getting stronger physically and mentally because of it all.
“It’s never fun to get hurt; there’s never a good time to get hurt,” he said. “But I think going through that … once you start throwing and kind of seeing the ball come out of your hand again, it’s a refreshing feeling.”
He added, “The injury time did a lot for me in terms of kind of reshaping my outlook on pitching.”
His return last season in a bullpen role, he said, was “essentially just a continuation of that.”
Effective as he was in that position last season, with a 2.67 ERA in 27 appearances, Bubic would have embraced whatever job the Royals cast him in this season.
In another example of the cumulative wisdom he’s acquired through his experiences, though, his starting perspective has been fortified by his bullpen mentality.
Instead of focusing directly on how important it is to throw six or seven innings every outing, for example, “it’s almost just like, ‘Hey, go be a reliever for one inning. And then do it again, do it again, do it again.’
“It breaks the game into smaller segments. Allows me to just kind of reset every inning and just trust (the process).”
Yes, of course the idea is to pitch deep into games.
“But you’ve got to get there first,” he said. “Where that starts is inning one, inning two, facing a lineup the first time through, the second time through and so on.
“So just breaking the game down … makes it a lot easier for me to digest.”
Small sample size that it is, it’s one of the most palatable developments of a season still in its infancy.
This story was originally published April 6, 2025 at 6:32 PM.