The righty could miss some serious time.
Today, the Royals added Michael Lorenzen to the Injured List with a left oblique injury. He missed his scheduled start on Saturday due to illness. If I had a nickel for every time a Royals pitcher couldn’t go because he was sick, and then he was added to the Injured List with a strained muscle before ever retaking the mound, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice.
We have placed RHP Michael Lorenzen on the 15-day Injured List retroactive to July 11 with a left oblique strain.
The move is retroactive to July 11, which would make him eligible to return on July 26. Even with that and the All-Star Break, that’s at least one missed start for the Royals. However, the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society indicates that the average return time for an oblique strain for a pitcher is about 35 days. That would be a massive blow to the Royals’ rotation as Lorenzen has been absolute nails since his awful start against the Cardinals. No corresponding move has been made at this time.
If Lorenzen is going to miss significant time, the healthy starting pitcher that might make the most sense for the Royals to add to the roster would be 45-year-old Rich Hill. Hill hasn’t made a start since 2023 and had four extremely subpar relief outings for the Red Sox last season. He got off to a hot start with Omaha this year after signing a minor league deal with the Royals, but hasn’t been nearly as good lately, giving up five or more runs in three of his last five starts.
The Royals recently signed Dallas Keuchel to a minor league deal, but he has only one appearance for Omaha and would seem unlikely to be ready. The Royals could also try Chandler Champlain, Thomas Hatch, or John Gant but none of them has pitched any better than Hill.
All of these pitchers share one problem for the Royals: none are on the 40-man roster, necessitating the removal of a player. Tyler Gentry and Luke Maile might be the most obvious choices. If the Royals choose to cut Maile loose for the second time this season they’d need to promote a position player currently on the 40-man roster back to the big leagues. MJ Melendez, Drew Waters, Cavan Biggio, Joey Wiemer, Dairon Blanco, and Tyler Gentry all meet those criteria. Michael Massey and Mark Canha are both on the 10-day IL and would be eligible to return by Friday if the Royals wanted to go with either of them.