Kansas City Royals: Most disappointing players in 2018
By Mike Norris
C+. <strong>2018 Key Stats: 9-12, 4.37 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 3.8 K/BB</strong>. SP. Kansas City Royals. JAKE JUNIS
Poor pitching seems to be a theme for the 2018 Royals, but for the first month of the season Jake Junis wasn’t to blame.The 26-year-old got off to a strong start, going 3-2 with a 3.34 ERA and holding opponents to a .188 batting average in April.
May through July was a different story, as Junis dropped 10 of 12 decisions and allowed a whopping 50 earned runs in just 78 innings. His manager Ned Yost said it’s hard to get a read on Junis whether he’s pitching well or not, per Adam Feiner of saukvalley.com.
"“I don’t get any sense of anything he does,” Yost said. “He’s just blank-faced. You never know what he’s thinking.”"
He was even apparently that way after receiving death threats from Yankees fans after hitting star slugger Aaron Judge with a fastball in August that sent him to the DL, according to Feiner.
"“I’ve basically just ignored it,” Junis said. “It’s not really my personality or place to say anything about it. It was the second batter of the game, I was ahead in the count, and the ball just got away from me. I would never want to put somebody out for a period of time. I feel terrible about it.”"
Junis did seem to get it together after the All-Star breaking, winning four of six starts and striking out 72 batters in 75 1/3 innings while walking just 15. He did still allow batters to his .272 against him.
It certainly was not an awful season for Junis, but after such a hot start it was disappointing to see him fall off so much. Even an average stretch in mid-summer would have meant a great season for Junis.