CLEVELAND — Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost waited as long as he could, but he finally reached the point where he had to make a decision. So on Thursday, Yost announced that struggling left-hander Danny Duffy was being moved out of the starting rotation and into the bullpen.
“The production wasn’t there as a starter right now,” Yost said.
In 24 starts this season Duffy is 7-8 with a 4.35 ERA, but he has really struggled recently. In his last four starts Duffy was 0-2 with a 5.59 ERA. In his last start, Wednesday, a 5-1 loss in Cleveland, Duffy gave up four runs on six hits in 2 1/3 innings.
The Royals still had a comfortable 10-game lead in the AL Central at the start of play Thursday night, but Yost is already looking ahead to the postseason, and he wants to get his rotation lined up. Jeremy Guthrie will come out of the bullpen to replace Duffy in the rotation. But the Royals’ Big Four will be Johnny Cueto, Yordano Ventura, Edinson Volquez, and Kris Medlen.
“We need four consistent starters in the postseason and the other four were out-performing Danny,” Yost said. “We need to see if he can be productive out of the ‘pen, and we think he can. We knew if we were going to do this with Danny we better go ahead and do it to give him as much time as he can to get acclimated down there.”
Yost said Duffy’s stuff is fine, but he wasn’t commanding it, and that led to high pitch counts early in games. “He was unable to get us much past the fifth inning and you can’t afford that,” Yost said. “You’ve got to have guys who go out and get you deep into games and preserve your bullpen as much as you can.”
Guthrie, who relieved Duffy on Wednesday and pitched 4 2/3 innings, allowing one run, will get three starts before the end of the regular season.