Royals News: Kris Bubic set to make Major League Debut on Friday

Royals news surrounds how 2018 draft pick Kris Bubic will make his MLB debut on Friday night for the Kansas City Royals.

Coming into the 2020 season, Kansas City Royals fans knew that this would be the year of debuts for their big name prospects.

Everyone expected names like Brady Singer, Tyler Zuber, and Foster Griffin to make their debuts, but there were some that appeared to be more on the fence, like Kris Bubic.

Well, in a shocking turn of events, Bubic will make his MLB debut on Friday against the White Sox.

Bubic was the fourth pitcher taken by the Royals in the 2018 MLB Draft, followed by Singer, Jackson Kowar, and Daniel Lynch. This was one of the many reasons why fans didn’t expect him to get the call-up before Kowar and Lynch, but here we are.

Bubic pitched at Stanford for three years before entering the draft and had a shiny 2.82 ERA during his time on the mound for the Cardinal. The Royals took him 40th overall and he made a good enough impression to be chosen as an American League pitcher in the Future’s Game last summer in Cleveland.

Bubic had an ERA of 2.23 between Wilmington and Lexington and has now shown enough to new manager Mike Matheny to make his debut in the Royals rotation.

Check out what’s trending in Royals news from around FanSided

• 2020 season will be year of MLB debuts [Cody Rickman, KC Kingdom]
• Adalberto Mondesi looks lost so far [Travis Neely, KC Kingdom]
• Mike Matheny is positioning to win [Cody Rickman, KC Kingdom]
• Future rotation is starting to form in shortened season [FanSided]

"By taking college pitchers, the Royals made it known that they saw themselves contending sooner rather than later and that these pitchers were going to play a major role in helping them get back to relevancy."

Here’s what’s trending in Royals news from around the rest of the web

• Kris Bubic to start home opener on Friday night [Max Rieper, Royals Review]
• Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes now part owner of Royals [ESPN]

Even bigger in this news is that Bubic received the nod to start the Royals’ first home game of the season. I know this year is different than most, as there won’t be any fans in the stands, but this is still huge for the former Stanford pitcher.

Oh, he also gets to go toe-to-toe with White Sox pitcher Dallas Keuchel, so that should be fun.

We all expected that this time of year would be when we’d start to see these players get to the big leagues, but that was before COVID-19 shortened the season. Now that it’s taking place so early in the season, it’s a lot to take in, but this is definitely a good thing.

Kris Bubic has impressed in a short amount of time with the Kansas City Royals, and this is why teams like drafting college pitchers. It doesn’t take them as long to get through the minor leagues and to fine-tune their mechanics.

Bubic did enough to show he was ready and Matheny took notice. Now it’ll be Kris Bubic time at the K on Friday night.

I can’t wait.