Kansas City Royals: Two Key Changes Could Solve Many Problems
Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Danny Duffy (41) Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
Duffy struggled this spring while competing for a spot in the rotation posting an 11.45 ERA in 6 appearances. He predictably ended up starting the season in Omaha.
To his credit, Duffy took his medicine and was quickly recalled to KC to compensate for early season injuries to relievers Tim Collins and Francisley Bueno. The results to date have been spectacular.
Duffy has now pitched 8.1 innings yielding only 5 hits and no runs while posting a WHIP of .84 and a perfect 0.00 ERA including 11 K’s and only 2 walks.
The question emerging now for Royals manager Ned Yost is, how long can he stick with the struggling Bruce Chen in the rotation?
Duffy has shown what he can do but it would seem the bullpen roles have all been set now with Wade Davis and Greg Holland forming the setup/closer tandem so all that’s left would be situational opportunities.
The Royals can't afford to limit a kid with the high ceiling of Duffy to an intermittent role in the bullpen when he could be ready to assume a full-time slot in the rotation.
The Royals can’t afford to limit a kid with the high ceiling of Duffy to an intermittent role in the bullpen when he could be ready to assume a full-time slot in the rotation. Whatever his struggles were during spring training, he appears to have overcome his issues.
Duffy has scaled back his arsenal to essentially a two-pitch menu of fastball and curve ball with infrequent doses of his changeup and slider, much like Luke Hochevar did last season.
Admittedly, coming out of the bullpen in short bursts inherently simplifies the game for pitchers allowing them to go all-out on every pitch whereas starters are forced to use a more economical approach since they’re required to pitch much longer into games than relievers.
Still, the bullpen experience may have been all Duffy needed, much as it was for Hochevar, to finally realize that he needs to go after hitters with his best stuff rather than trying to out-smart them. When you have dominant stuff, you need to pitch accordingly and not hamstring yourself by over-complicating things.
Of course, the big difference between Hochevar last season and Duffy this year is that there was an obvious role for Hochevar as the setup man last season whereas this year, that role has already been occupied by Wade Davis.
I was a big fan of resigning Chen this off-season but that assumed he was being brought back as a spot starter/long reliever. I’ll say this again for the record, Bruce Chen is not a rotation fixture kind of guy and it’s time for Ned Yost to realize that and take appropriate action to address it.