Kansas City Royals: What we learned after Kris Bubic recorded first win

The Kansas City Royals are on a four-game win streak! What did we learn about the boys in blue after win number 18 on the year?

Just when Kansas City Royals fans started to envision taking Kumar Rocker in the 2021 MLB Draft, the team started to reel off victories, winning four in a row now.

The highlight of Friday night’s game was the fact that rookie starting pitcher Kris Bubic notched his first Major League win. Bubic tossed five innings and gave up just one run on six hits. He walked two while striking out six batters. His ERA now sits at 4.50 and he has a 1-5 win-loss record.

Wins and losses might not be a huge deal in Major League Baseball, but it was nice to see Bubic finally got in the win column regardless.

What else did we learn about the Kansas City Royals in their fourth straight win?

Adalberto Mondesi is starting to get his confidence back at the plate, as he went 1-for-2 with a home run, two walks, and he crossed the plate three times. He’s still hitting just .207, but at least he’s showing signs of improvement and starting to show glimpses of the player Royals fans watched just a year ago.

Going back to Bubic though, while he only allowed the one run, it’d be nice to see the rookie go further in games. He tends to have an incredibly high pitch count, which usually leads to him getting pulled after just five innings of work.

Fortunately, the Royals bullpen is pretty good normally, but they allowed two runs on Friday night, both being charged to Scott Barlow. Jesse Hahn and Josh Staumont are still as clutch as they have been all season while Greg Holland locked down save number four, making it feel like 2014 all over again.

Yes, all of this came against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who are worse than the Royals, but a win is a win and the Royals are on a winning streak! They play the Pirates two more times and should hopefully be able to win the series, which would give them two straight series victories.

At times, the Kansas City Royals have shown glimpses of potential and that’s what we’ve been seeing recently. Of course it’s a little too late now, as the Royals are ten games under .500 and won’t be making the postseason. Some fans might even want them to be losing so that they can make a run at Kumar or another top player in the draft, but Mike Matheny isn’t going to do that nor would any MLB manager.

Forty-six games down, 14 to go!