Injuries Are Really Starting To Crank on the Royals Rotation

“The reason the Royals are so far down this list is that they don’t have an obvious back of the rotation yet.” That’s what Ben Clemens wrote when the Royals turned up at no. 13 on our Positional Power Rankings back in March. Until Saturday, the lack of depth hadn’t held them back at all. Their five starters, Seth Lugo, Cole Ragans, Michael Wacha, Michael Lorenzen, and Kris Bubic, had started 45 of the team’s 46 games. As Michael Baumann wrote last week, Bubic, the biggest question mark of the bunch, has instead pitched like an exclamation point. After taking a no-hit bid into the seventh inning in San Francisco last night, he’s 5-2 with a 1.47 ERA and 2.72 FIP. Put it all together, and the Kansas City starters have a 2.93 ERA and 3.45 FIP, good for the third- and fourth-best marks in baseball, respectively. But that depth is finally going to be tested. On Saturday, the Royals announced that they’d sent both Lugo and Ragans to the injured list.

Lugo and Ragans, who respectively finished second and fourth in the AL Cy Young voting in 2024, have been on opposite sides of the process-results spectrum thus far this season. Lugo is rocking a 3.02 ERA with a 4.52 FIP, while Ragans has a 4.53 ERA and a 1.99 FIP. The good news is that neither injury sounds too serious (with the obvious caveat that because they’re pitchers, either player could spontaneously combust at any moment). Both had been dealing with nagging injuries in recent weeks and seemed to reach the point where it was time to back off rather than risk something more serious.

Lugo had been bothered by a blister over his last few starts, and told reporters that he thought the injury was a result of compensating for it. As Mark Polishuk of MLB Trade Rumors noted, the injury was initially described on May 11 as ring finger inflammation. Lugo was expected to skip only one start, but the “official diagnosis of a sprain indicates that a scan revealed something beyond just soreness.” His IL stint is retroactive to May 14, so he could be back by the end of the month.

Ragans had been hampered by left groin tightness since April 24, when he was pulled after allowing four runs over three innings against the Rockies. He was scratched from his next start, and has made three starts since. He went five innings each time, holding the White Sox scoreless in a win and allowing four runs each in losses to both the Red Sox and the Cardinals. But Friday’s loss to the Cardinals exacted a higher price. Ragans came out to start the sixth inning, but he didn’t look right and his fastball was noticeably slower. He threw his only four-seamer of the entire season under 90 mph, then gave up a leadoff single to Masyn Winn and exited the game, once again due to groin tightness.

Pete Grathoff of the Kansas City Star reported that Ragans is optimistic that a few days of rest will allow the issue to resolve itself. “Take a few days where it’s not really getting cranked on and continue throwing,” he said. “And get ready for at the end of this IL stint that I’m ready to go.” (Take a moment to ask yourself whether you’ve ever played a sport with such intensity that it would qualify as “really cranking on a groin muscle,” and then take another moment to think about the many ways that your life is different from the life of a professional athlete.) In spite of Ragans’ optimism, it’s important to note that the injury failed to go away a few weeks ago when the scratch gave him nine straight days of rest.

In the meantime, the Royals have recalled starter Noah Cameron and reliever Evan Sisk from Triple-A Omaha. Cameron has been excellent both with Omaha and in his two big league starts this season, though his FIP has been over 4.00 at both levels. When he was called up the first time back in April, Eric Longenhagen called him “a stable, polished no. 4 starter prospect.” Sisk has allowed just two runs, one earned, over 12 Omaha appearances, and he’s gone 2 1/3 scoreless innings in two appearances with the Royals. His peripherals look excellent as well. But still, Kansas City has replaced two starters with a starter and a reliever, leaving them with four starters at the moment.

“We’ll just have to see how we get through these days,” said manager Matt Quatraro. “Then Thursday being an off day, there’s a potential to bullpen it or come up with something else in the interim. We’re not going to get too far ahead of ourselves.” Grathoff noted that the Royals actually have two Thursdays off in a row, which would at least make it possible to get through the next two weeks with only four starters (and the occasional bullpen game). He asked Quatraro whether the team was considering that course of action. “Potentially,” said the manager, “but then you’ve got to be careful with the other guys, too. You can’t just run on a short rest or four-man rotation. All that. You’re going to end up needing a fifth guy at some point, but it could potentially help.”

Quatraro’s quotes emphasize that the Royals are still figuring out a short-term plan to get through these injuries. They’re still very much developing their long-term plan, too. In an ideal world, the team would have enough healthy starters to push Lorenzen back into the bullpen, where he has historically pitched better, but that seems unlikely to happen. Two other Kansas City starters, Alec Marsh and Kyle Wright, were already out hurt with shoulder injuries and won’t be back any time soon. Even when they do return, both players project to put up ERAs above 4.00. Cameron was the only starter performing well in Omaha (though Luinder Avila has pitched to a 3.63 FIP that belies his 4.74 ERA). As such, the team is looking further afield.

Last week, the Royals signed the 45-year-old Rich Hill to a minor league deal, and he’s not even the only Long Island Ducks alumnus that Kansas City has added in the past week. On Sunday, Robert Murray of Fansided reported that the Royals had purchased the contract of right-handed pitcher John Gant from the Atlantic League team. The 32-year-old Gant debuted with the Braves in 2016, but hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021. From 2022 to 2024, he made just three professional appearances, all with NPB’s Nippon Ham fighters in 2023. However, he’s made four starts with the Ducks this spring, running a 1.71 ERA, striking out 35.5% of the batters he’s faced, and allowing 10 hits over 21 innings pitched.

Neither Hill nor Gant has pitched for the Triple-A Storm Chasers yet, but if either Lugo or Ragans needs more time to recover than expected, they could very well find themselves pitching meaningful innings for a Kansas City team that is currently in line for a playoff berth. At 27-22, the Royals are tied with the Twins for the first AL Wild Card spot, half a game ahead of the Guardians. That’s right, for all the talk of Central Division weakness in recent years, as things stand now, all three AL Wild Card spots belong to the Central. Even after getting blown out Monday night, the Tigers own the best record in the majors, at 31-17, and have a commanding 4 1/2-game lead over the Twins and Royals in the division. Our playoff odds bumped the Royals up to a 49.4% chance of playing in October following their Monday night win over the Giants.

The Royals have gotten where they are thanks to their pitching. Their 81 wRC+ ranks 27th in baseball, and their 1.8 position-player WAR ranks 26th. They’re dead last in home runs and walk rate. They have the second-highest strikeout rate in baseball. If the rotation falls apart, it’s hard to imagine their bats coming to the rescue. Maybe they should be looking at Atlantic League hitters, too, until the arrival of Jac Caglianone, who was recently promoted to Triple-A. The Royals have given 686 plate appearances this season to players with a wRC+ below 70, fourth most in baseball.

Pulling in the 45-year-old Hill based on Trackman readings from home workouts and the 32-year-old Gant based on four Atlantic League starts looks a lot like desperation. At the very least, it tells us that the team’s opinion of its minor league options matches what we can see from the outside. Things could still work out fine. Lugo and Ragans could return feeling refreshed after their two weeks on the IL. Wright and Marsh could be ready in a few more weeks, shoring up the depth. But it’s all too easy to see things going the other way. Should Lugo or Ragans need more time, whoever fills their place would represent a significant step down. Wright and Marsh have both suffered setbacks already, and they could return either later than the team currently hopes or in diminished form. Bubic will likely come down to earth at some point, and Wacha and Lorenzen are both 33. Odds are that the Royals, like all teams, will have some starters go down over the next four months. The back of their rotation is more of a concern than ever.