The end results weren’t there for Brady Singer on Friday against the Astros. However, Royals manager Mike Matheny is confident they will be if Singer keeps throwing the way he did.
“He had good life,” Matheny said of Singer. “He had the swing-and-miss slider, the changeup was good. Just anything that he got anywhere near the plate found a barrel. They got the base hits, and the next thing you know you’re talking three, two-run homers and those are hard to overcome. But his stuff was right. It’s just a shame.”
Though Singer was hitting 96 mph on the radar gun, he gave up seven runs in five innings and yielded three home runs in a 10-3 loss. Singer struck out four and walked none but had been pitching well since his return from Triple-A.
Singer, the Royals’ first-round pick in 2018, started this season in the bullpen after having been used strictly as a starter his first two years in the big leagues. Singer, though, had been relying primarily on his sinker and slider and hadn’t developed the changeup like the Royals desired and was optioned to Omaha in late April. There Singer focused on the changeup and soon made his way back to Kansas City’s starting rotation three and a half weeks later.
Singer went 2-0 in his first three starts, striking out 20 and walking just three. And he had lowered his ERA to 2.49 before seeing it rise to 4.15 after Friday’s start. Aledmys Diaz homered on a sinker in the second inning, Martin Moldonado homered on a sinker in the fifth and Yordan Alvarez homered on a sinker in the sixth.
“The sinker felt really good today,” Singer said after the game. “I just felt like I had good command on it, but it bit me in the end.”
Location, though, proved the ultimate factor for Singer against Diaz, but the other two were where he wanted them.
“He had everything that he needed,” Matheny said. “He made a middle-middle mistake to Diaz early. But the other two home runs ended up being two-run homers, but they were pretty good pitches.”