This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.
--
Royals 4, Orioles 1
IP H R ER BB K
Bubic (W, 2-0) 6.2 5 1 1 1 8
The hardest thing in sports isn’t hitting a round ball with a round bat squarely. The hardest thing in sports is resisting the temptation to do a victory lap on your offseason calls 15 minutes into the new season.
I loved Kris Bubic, who had Tommy John surgery after three starts in 2023 and looked great out of the pen for the Royals late last year, to make a leap this season. Yesterday, he shut down the Orioles in his second start, pushing his ERA up to 0.71 in the process. He’s whiffed just shy of a third of the batters he’s faced while walking just three of the 49. Batters aren’t squaring him up at all, with just two barrels and an anemic average exit velocity of 85 mph. The change that has always been his out pitch has been untouchable, with a 53% whiff rate, and he’s now using both a sweeper and a true slider, with great results.
The concern with Bubic is just going to be volume. His pro high in innings pitched is 149 1/3, and he threw 16 two years ago, 70 2/3 last year. The Royals have had a lot of success in recent seasons getting maximum volume from pitchers with similar backgrounds such as Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans. Bubic could be their second-best starter behind Ragans, it’s just a question of for how long.
