Royals’ Mike Montgomery gets back on the mound against big-league hitters
The Kansas City Royals went away from their rotating scrimmage format and adopted a more traditional two-squad head-to-head format that matched a veteran lineup against one with a mix of top prospects as well as players with some MLB time.
The scrimmage played under the lights at Kauffman Stadium, ended in a 1-1 tie.
Left-hander Mike Montgomery, one of four starting pitchers penciled into the rotation entering spring training, started and threw three innings against a close approximation of the potential opening day lineup minus catcher Salvador Perez, who remains away from the team after a positive test result for COVID-19.
Montgomery, who threw about 60 pitches, gave up one run on a solo homer by catcher Cam Gallagher, and he also gave up a double ripped down the left-field line by Maikel Franco. Montgomery allowed four hits, walked two and struck out two.
“I woke up and tried to treat it like a regular-season game,” Montgomery said. “But not being able to get to the ballpark until two hours before your start changes things. You’re kind of a little rushed. ... I didn’t know who I was going to be facing today. When I saw I was going to be going against our guys, I was excited because I hadn’t faced any big-league hitters in a couple months.”
He worked around a pair of runners in the third after giving up a single to Whit Merrifield and a walk to Hunter Dozier. Montgomery got Jorge Soler to hit a grounder back to the mound to end the inning.
“That’s going to be a lot of the battle too, no fans whether we’re on the road or at home,” Montgomery said. “You’ve got to treat it almost like that playoff mentality. I think that’s some of the most fun way to approach the game — that it’s a must win.”
Highly-regarded pitching prospect Daniel Lynch, a 6-foot-6 left-hander ranked the No. 42 overall prospect in the game by Baseball America, started against a lineup composed mostly of minor-leaguers and players with limited big-league experience such as top prospect Bobby Witt Jr., Suely Matias, Bubba Starling and Khalil Lee.
Lynch’s first inning included a walk and a stolen base by Witt. Lych struck out three batters in the inning. He recorded four strikeouts and allowed one hit and one walk in two scoreless innings.
The lone hit came when Erick Mejia doubled on a ball that one-hopped off the left-field wall in the second inning.
Witt dropped a broken-bat RBI single into right field in the third inning against left-handed reliever Timmy Hill to drive in the first run of the scrimmage in the third inning.
Mondesi is full go
Royals shortstop Adalberto Mondesi spent this offseason rehabbing from September shoulder surgery to repair a labral tear in his non-throwing shoulder.
He’d been progressing towards playing in a spring-training game in Arizona when MLB suspended camps. He was actually in the lineup for the first time the day the Royals’ Cactus League game against the Seattle Mariners got canceled on March 12.
“That day I was going to play was the day that everything got canceled,” Mondesi said. “Since that day I’ve been feeling good. It was a good time for me, back home where I could keep working. It was a little more time to get ready.”
Mondesi was asked this week if his shoulder is now 100 percent, and he replied, “Yes, it feels great. When I went back home (to the Dominican Republic), I stayed on top of my shoulder work and it feels good now.”
He went on to say he had no restrictions as far as what he can and can’t do. He said he was a “normal player” in that respect.
Testing update
MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association announced the results of the COVID-19 “intake” testing for players arriving to spring training 2.0 camps as well as the initial results of the “monitoring” phase of testing for personnel who will continued to be tested throughout camp and the season.
The Royals have announced three players who’ve tested positive in star catcher Perez, last year’s opening day starting pitcher Brad Keller and first baseman Ryan O’Hearn.
The total number of positive tests for the MLB intake testing was 66 or 1.8 percent of the 3,748 total samples. Fifty-eight of these 66 positives were players and eight were staff members. Twenty-seven of the 30 teams had a positive result during intake screening.
Seventeen of the 7,401 samples collected as part of the monitoring phase of testing or 0.2 percent were new positives. Thirteen of the 17 positives were players and four have been staff members. Ten teams have had a positive result during monitoring.
The total number of positive tests is 83 or 0.7 percent of the 11,149 samples since the beginning of intake screening on June 27th. Of the 83 positives, 71 were players and 12 were staff members. Twenty-eight teams have had a positive result in either intake screening or during monitoring.
This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 9:15 PM with the headline "Royals’ Mike Montgomery gets back on the mound against big-league hitters."
