KC Royals: Ranking the Starting Pitchers

Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

The KC Royals have the best record in the American League and are 10 games over .500. Last year, the Royals’ success was in large part because of the lights out starting rotation. This year has been a different story though.

With James Shields gone (and posting a 7-0 record with a 3.59 ERA might I add), it was vital that the Kansas City Royals have a guy step up and take charge of this team. Many considered young Yordano Ventura to be the so-called “ace” of this squad, but Danny Duffy also had potential to be the leader for this ball club.

The Royals also returned Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Vargas to their rotation, both of whom pitched decently throughout the playoffs. The newcomer was former Pittsburgh Pirate Edinson Volquez, who has been a terrific pick-up for the Royals.

Injuries have strongly affected these KC Royals and that has pushed Chris Young into the starting rotation, where he has not disappointed.

With all of the questions continuning to linger around the starting rotation, I thought it’d be a perfect time to rank this year’s starters. So far, the Royals have seen six guys take the mound as starters this season so we’ll start with the sixth best (or worst if you want to look at it in a negative light) pitcher thus far in 2015.

Next: What happened to last year's showing?