KC Royals: What A Difference A Decade Makes

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Zack Greinke – Mandatory Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports /

Pitching

The Royals bullpen dominance over the past couple of seasons has become a blueprint that other teams are now trying to mimic. While the pitching is dependable now, it wasn’t always a strength

2005 Starters and Closer:

The Royals’ pitching in 2005 was atrocious from top to bottom. There is no trying to find positives out of this bunch. They were just plain bad.

The best pitcher in the rotation was D.J. Carrasco with a 4.79 earned run averaged. Zack Greinke filled out the rotation with a 5.80 ERA. It was only his second season, but Greinke has turned into a superstar. Luckily the Royals parlayed him into not one but two ALCS MVP players when they traded him for Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar.

The closer in 2005 was Mike MacDougal. He earned 21 saves in 70.1 innings of work but carried a 3.33 earned run average. Seeing MacDougal enter a game for the Royals today would probably mean the game was out of hand, and not in a good way.

The rest of the staff included names like J.P. Howell, Runelvys Hernandez, and Jose Lima. If you think that the Royals had a weak rotation in 2015, you should know that only Carrasco had an ERA under 5 in 2005.

2015 Starters and Closer:

The Royals used four different starters in the 2015 playoffs. Those starting pitchers were Yordano Ventura, Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, and Chris Young.

The highest regular season ERA for those pitchers belonged to Cueto at 4.76, but he pitched a complete game in the World Series and another eight inning gem in the ALDS.