Lyles unfortunate start with Royals


Since signing with Kansas City this past offseason, Jordan Lyles has had a pretty bad start to his Royals’ career. According to Joseph Summer's of Kings of Kauffman: "Thus, these are not opponents of the same quality. Lyles, for his part, has held his opponent to three or fewer runs just four times in his last 16 outings. The Royals lost 15 consecutive starts by Lyles before last week with 13 of those losses coming by multiple runs." Did the Royals possibly overpay for Lyles services? Yes, however, he is the type of starting pitcher that a team like the Orioles and Royals would sign if they are in the middle of a painful rebuild. Royals General Manager J.J Picollo said during an interview shortly after the Lyles signing: "The reason we’re excited about Jordan and Ryan,” Picollo said, “is when we look at their track record, they’ve been able to pitch significant innings. We’re going into this season thinking between the two of them we can secure or stabilize 300 innings, which is a pretty good chunk between two pitchers.” Although the right hander has an unfortunate win-loss record and a pretty high ERA, he has been able to eat innings for a team that has a very young rotation. However, I am not sure Lyles will pitch 200 innings this season, but he will get a good chunk if he can stay healthy. I estimate the right hander will pitch between 175 -180 innings by the end of this season. The quote "stay healthy" might be used a lot for pitchers; but unlike many of them, the 32-year old has stayed healthy throughout his career, making him a good signing for a team that was looking for a veteran starter that can eat up innings and stay healthy. Lyles leads Royals pitchers in innings pitched, making the signing look better than it looks on paper. The 32-year old has given up five earned runs seven times so far this season, but he has had two games where gave up only one run. The offense hasn't scored many runs to support Lyles, and the bullpen hasn’t helped either. The veteran pitcher in fact made baseball history, but not the side of history a player wants to be on. According to ESPN Stats & Info, the Royals have lost each of Jordan Lyles' 15 starts this season. That is the longest losing streak when a pitcher starts to begin a season in AL or NL history. When Kansas City was looking for a veteran starter in the offseason, they didn’t want to break the bank on a starting pitcher, but they did want  a guy that could go out every fifth day and pitch a quality game. Hopefully, the right hander can turn his Royals’ career around in the second half of the season and next season.

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