Kansas City Royals call up top pitching prospect Daniel Lynch to make debut start
The Kansas City Royals will hand the ball to top pitching prospect Daniel Lynch to make his major-league debut on Monday night against the division rival Cleveland Indians at Kauffman Stadium.
The club announced Lynch will be called up and start the first game of the homestand. A corresponding roster move will be made on Monday.
Royals general manager Dayton Moore said right-hander Jakob Junis, who had been scheduled to start on Monday, will move into the bullpen and Lynch will take Junis’ spot in the starting rotation.
A 6-foot-6 left-hander drafted 34th overall in 2018, Lynch had been in Omaha, Nebraska, preparing to begin the minor-league season at Triple-A when he got the news of his promotion from Omaha manager Brian Poldberg in a whirlwind day that included sharing the news with his fiancee and family, doing one final throwing session in Omaha, packing up his apartment in Omaha and making the drive to Kansas City.
“It was a lot of talking on the phone, just try to kind of figure out who was coming and all that,” Lynch said of his drive to Kansas City. “I’m lucky to have a lot of people around me who really care about me. So it was a process of getting all those people figured out, them coming and getting tickets and all that.”
Lynch also said it was several hours after he got the news before he knew which opponent he’d be facing amid all the preparation in a “frantic” day.
“For it to be here, it kind of was a thought of — wow, so much work has gone into this moment,” Lynch said. “I definitely think it’s going to happen tomorrow and I’m going to enjoy it. Then I want to keep on pushing forward and not just say all right I made it. I want to keep push, but I also want to make sure that I enjoy this because a lot of work went into this moment.”
The No. 2 prospect in the Royals farm system behind shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., Lynch came into this spring ranked among the top pitching prospects in professional baseball.
In its latest rankings, Baseball America ranked him the seventh-best pitching prospect in the minors and 21st-best prospect regardless of position. MLBPipeline.com ranked him No. 24 overall and second-best left-handed pitching prospect.
“There’s no denying the quality and the electricity of his pitches, that’s undeniable,” Moore said. “For Daniel, it just has been about being consistent in the strike zone with those pitches, controlling his delivery, his tempo.”
Lynch, 24, has made 32 minor-league starts and posted an 11-3 record with a 2.50 ERA, 157 strikeouts and 37 walks and a 1.19 WHIP in 147 2/3 innings.
Lynch spent last season pitching at the Royals alternate training site. He’s been a non-roster invitee to big-league spring training camp for the last two years.
“We looked at this spring training as an opportunity to really develop him, put him in some high-leverage situations,” Moore said. “If you reflect back, he probably had more starts with the major-league team than perhaps the guys in our current rotation. That was by design.”
The Royals planned to add Lynch to the rotation at some point this season, but injuries have forced Jesse Hahn and Kyle Zimmer onto the injured list.
Junis could pitch in multiple roles out of the bullpen, and the Royals recalled Kris Bubic on Saturday. Bubic pitched out of the bullpen for the first time in his MLB career on Sunday.
The Lynch announcement came on the heels of another tough outing for Opening Day starter Brad Keller on Sunday in Minnesota. Keller, viewed as the ace of the pitching rotation entering this season, now has a 2-3 record with an 8.06 ERA in six starts this season.
Keller has pitched five innings or more just twice so far this season, and in half of his starts he’s been removed before the end of the fourth inning.
Right-hander Brady Singer left his start on Friday after having been hit in the foot by a line drive, but Singer and Matheny both had expressed optimism that Singer would make his next start. As recently as Sunday morning, Matheny said Singer was still on schedule. Singer remains in line to pitch on Wednesday night.
This story was originally published May 2, 2021 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Kansas City Royals call up top pitching prospect Daniel Lynch to make debut start."
