AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Sunday’s game against the White Sox had a first for the Kansas City Royals in 2024. After surrendering three straight singles in the fifth inning, Alec Marsh was pulled from the game. This was the first time in the Royals’ ten games where their starter failed to complete five or more frames.
In 2023 and 2022, a Royals starter failed to pitch five full innings in just the third game. In 2021 and 2020, their Opening Day starter couldn’t even reach that mark.
It’s an enviable streak that has defined the Royals’ strong start to the season. Their 6-4 record, including a four-game sweep of the White Sox, is complemented by MLB’s fifth-best run differential of +19. Their four losses are a Yahtzee sequence from a one-run loss to a four-run loss. The Royals have shut out their opponents twice, held them to one run twice, and only suffered five or more runs twice.
The correlation is clear: Royals starters pitch well, the team plays well. Through these first ten games, Royals SP’s have pitched more innings than any other rotation (62) and have allowed the second-fewest runs (11). That’s an insane 1.60 ERA for a collective of pitchers averaging more than six innings per start. The fab five have accumulated eight Quality Starts when no other team has more than five. Here are some more fun rankings to highlight their excellence:
| .AVG | .166 | 1st |
| WHIP | 0.81 | 1st |
| BABIP | .212 | 1st |
| LOB% | 86.1% | 2nd |
| FIP | 2.76 | 2nd |
| xFIP | 3.10 | 3rd |
| SIERA | 3.21 | 4th |
So, not only are the basic numbers fantastic, but predictive stats like FIP and SIERA hold the Royals starters in almost equally high regard. No one can be this good at stranding runners and turning batted balls into outs forever, but the team isn’t just blessed by good fielding and a large ballpark. There’s another powerful element to their performance: efficiency.
Despite the Royals’ starters clocking more innings than any other rotation, they’ve only thrown the 10th most pitches. It should be obvious why: they don’t give up a lot of free passes and limit the damage.
| BB% | 6.0% | 8th (lowest) |
| K% | 24.8% | 10th (highest) |
| K-BB% | 18.8% | 8th (best) |
| HRs allowed | 3 | 3rd |
| HR/9 | 0.44 | 2nd |
| Groundball % | 51.3% | 2nd (highest) |
| Flyball % | 26.6% | 2nd (lowest) |
| HardHit% | 35.2% | 7th (lowest) |
| Barrel% | 4.4% | 4th (lowest) |
One of my favorite findings through researching all this is that the Royals aren’t exactly dominant in throwing strikes, as evidenced by their good-but-not-excellent strikeout rate. Their rate of 65%-ish is only around league average, decided by small margins. But they do throw in the zone a lot more than other teams.
| Zone% | 44.4% | T-5th (highest) |
| First Pitch Strike% | 65.4% | T-8th (highest) |
| Swinging Strike% | 12.7% | T-4th (highest) |
| Called Strike% | 18.6% | 4th (highest) |
| Called + Swinging Strike% | 31.3% | 1st (highest) |
| Contact% | 72.8% | 5th (lowest) |
Royals starters aren’t dominating hitters, but they’re not BS-ing them either. They’re going after them and staying competitive, and when to attack is something hitters aren’t entirely sure of. Add that to the strong defense on a very large field and we see a beautiful hybrid of strike-throwing, defense-oriented run prevention.
Clearly, the entire rotation isn’t going to have an ERA under 2 or even 3 for much longer. Some outcomes will inevitably fall the other way and every starter will have their bad days. I’d already contest that Marsh’s second start would have been a near-certain loss had he not faced a lineup that was merely competent, and not the worst in the AL.
…But I do think it can continue working at a high level. As I said, the model can easily work. Cole Ragans has been living up to the ace label he’s been given so far. Lugo and Wacha have been better than advertised, but still present a strong foundation for the middle of the rotation. Brady Singer and Alec Marsh might have taken steps forward that warrant further analysis in the future. For now, I’ll at least say they’re getting the job done.
Results aside, the efficiency is what I’m most excited about. With catastrophic pitching injuries becoming terrifyingly common, teams are scrambling for solutions to prevent them while still fulfilling their own needs. Manager Quatraro has been quick to pull his pitchers; Royals starters have only thrown 90 or more pitches four times so far this season, seemingly regardless of pitch count, inning, or performance.
| Date | Starter | Pitches thrown | Innings pitched | Earned runs |
| 3/28 | Cole Ragans | 97 | 6.0 | 2 |
| 3/30 | Seth Lugo | 86 | 6.0 | 0 |
| 3/31 | Brady Singer | 98 | 7.0 | 0 |
| 4/01 | Michael Wacha | 72 | 5.0 | 3 |
| 4/02 | Alec Marsh | 76 | 7.0 | 1 |
| 4/03 | Cole Ragans | 91 | 6.1 | 0 |
| 4/04 | Seth Lugo | 86 | 6.2 | 1 |
| 4/05 | Brady Singer | 72 | 6.1 | 1 |
| 4/06 | Michael Wacha | 93 | 7.0 | 0 |
| 4/07 | Alec Marsh | 78 | 4.2 | 3 |
A lot of factors can determine when to pull a starter, but the concerns of a starter’s workload and the physical toll it takes is veritable. The only pitcher in this rotation who’s ever qualified as a starter (in other words, pitched 162 innings in a season) is Michael Wacha, who last did so in 2017. He’s also battled shoulder fatigue in each of the last two seasons. Brady Singer also dealt with fatigue and a back strain last year. Cole Ragans has had two Tommy John’s. It probably wouldn’t hurt to be a bit conservative with any of their workloads, especially if they’re delivering the innings they’re expected to anyway.
Regardless of how much longer this level of performance will be sustained, the fab five in the Royals’ rotation have already proven themselves to be a significant leap of progress for the entire organization. A ten-game stretch of even relatively good pitching is nigh impossible to find in the past several Royals seasons. Even if the rest of the staff hasn’t been quite up to par (something we’ll probably have to discuss in the near future…) this rotation has given Royals fans a lot to cheer for, so far and moving forward.
