The Royals have turned to Daniel Lynch IV for a new job at the exact moment they can least afford a mistake. They listed the 29-year-old as their probable starter for the series opener against the Cubs on August 7, giving him his first start of the season.
The move matters because Lynch is not being asked to fill a temporary hole so much as to earn a place. Anne Rogers of MLB.com reported that the Royals intend to give him a legitimate rotation audition, and the assignment comes after he had worked mostly out of the bullpen for the past two seasons.
Lynch has given the Royals a case for the experiment. He had thrown 46 innings with a 1.96 ERA, a 19.1% strikeout rate and a sub-7% walk percentage, numbers that help explain why the club would consider stretching him out again. He came up as a starter, was still starting regularly in Triple-A as recently as two years ago and once logged a career-high 131 2/3 MLB innings in 2022.
But the workload test is real. Lynch had recorded more than four outs only three times all season, and his season-high pitch count was 37 in one inning against the Twins on April 1. That is a sharp climb to make if the Royals want him to cover innings as a starter, and it is not the kind of profile a team usually builds around without hesitation.
The hesitation is there for a reason. Previous fifth starter Luinder Avila went down with an elbow injury and underwent Tommy John surgery, and the Royals have also lost Cole Ragans, Stephen Kolek, Ryan Bergert and Ben Kudrna for the season. Mitch Spence, who went on the Triple-A injured list on Monday, is the only depth starter on the 40-man roster, which leaves the club short on obvious alternatives even as bullpen help may be the more pressing need.
That is what gives this start its weight. The Royals are not just covering one game against Chicago; they are testing whether Lynch can be more than a relief stopgap and whether he can hold a rotation spot for the rest of the season. The club has said he could make nine or ten starts if he keeps the job, a number that would be enough to matter now and enough to shape a look toward next season.
That longer view is part of the calculation. Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Noah Cameron will all be back next season, so the club is not only searching for survival in August but also trying to learn whether Lynch belongs in the picture beyond it. If he handles the turn against Chicago, the Royals will have something they do not have much of right now: one more credible answer, even if it comes from a pitcher they had mostly been using in relief.
