What other choice do they possibly have? It’s not like you can up and demote Fantastic Felipe Paulino or Jeff “The Canadian Crusader” Francis.
With Kyle Davies returning from the disabled list this week, the Royals plan to go to a six-man rotation, possibly for the rest of the season, according to manager Ned Yost.
The career ERAs of the Royals’ six starters:
4.60 (Bruce Chen)
4.61 (Danny Duffy, eight career starts)
4.77 (Francis)
5.45 (Luke Hochevar)
5.55 (Paulino)
5.60 (Davies)
I’m not going to blame Yost for this. Davies is the Royals’ highest-paid starter at $3.2 million, and the front office probably isn’t keen on making him a reliever or simply releasing him, even though he’s 1-6 with a 7.46 ERA. And it wouldn’t really be fair to dump anyone from the current group to make room for Davies, though only Chen deserves any real semblance of job security based on his performance over the last year.
So, six it is, though probably only for a little while. Davies can’t have much more rope, and it’s not like anyone from the group has diplayed much durability lately. Davies, who is coming back from a sore shoulder, was the only one of the six to make 25 starts last season.