Kansas City Royals: Kyle Zimmer has dazzled out of the bullpen so far
The Kansas City Royals are finally seeing the Kyle Zimmer they thought they drafted with the No. 5 pick in 2012. He’s been terrific early in the year.
The Kansas City Royals took Kyle Zimmer with the No. 5 selection in the 2012 MLB Draft in the hopes that he’d be a heavy contributor when the team was ready to contend with the likes of Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and Lorenzo Cain. Sadly, Zimmer couldn’t stay healthy and never made it to the big leagues during the Royals’ two World Series runs.
It was looking as though Zimmer would never get that chance, but in 2019, he finally did it, making the team’s Opening Day roster. His 2019 campaign wasn’t great, as he finished that year with an ERA over 10, but he showed glimpses of first-round potential last year, finishing his first “full” season with the team with a 1.57 ERA through 23 innings pitched.
While we’re still very early into the 2021 season, Zimmer has been one of the brightest spots from this team so far. He’s pitched in two games and has thrown 3.2 total innings and hasn’t allowed a run yet.
On Sunday, Zimmer pitched three scoreless innings against the Rangers while only surrendering one hit, walking one batter, and striking out two.
The Royals lost to the Rangers today, 7-3.
— Alec Lewis (@alec_lewis) April 4, 2021
Salvy homered. Kyle Zimmer was great out of the bullpen. But another early deficit finally got to them.
The record is 2-1. Away series against Cleveland starts mañana.
This is the Kyle Zimmer the Kansas City Royals thought they’d be getting back in 2012.
There were question marks surrounding Royals pitching entering the season and I was puzzled why people thought the bullpen might not be good. It was one of the best in the league a season ago and they didn’t lose much talent from that unit.
While Zimmer isn’t going to finish the year with a 0.00 ERA, if he can continue to be as good as he has been in his first two games, he could become quite the weapon out of the bullpen. He served as a long reliever on Sunday after Brady Singer allowed five earned runs (six total) through just 3.1 innings of work and this was exactly the type of production Kansas City needed after their starter struggled.
Zimmer might have taken more time than usual to make the majors and might not have been able to contribute to the 2014 and 2015 teams, but he can make up for it now. He really is looking like the former first-round pick that the Royals thought he’d be when they made him the No. 5 overall pick nearly a decade ago.
Next. Five Huge IFs for Deep Postseason Push. dark
Kyle Zimmer is a good story in Major League Baseball and here’s to hoping he does big things with the Kansas City Royals, who stuck with him this whole time.