Seth Lugo was bad and Aaron Bummer’s Royals debut was worse as the Royals fell to the Rockies 8-1.
It was just a couple of weeks ago that Brian Henry wrote that the Royals needed to learn from not trading Seth Lugo last year. Lugo put an exclamation point on that point today with just a hair over 24 hours remaining before the 2026 trade deadline. Lugo ended up pitching 5+ innings and allowed 5 runs while walking 5 and striking out only 3. Rumors continue to persist that he is considered valuable on the trade market,
but the Royals still seem disinclined to do anything with either him or Wacha.
Meanwhile, they added Aaron Bummer to the roster today with Luinder Avila heading to the IL. Bummer might not be long for the roster as the Royals will probably summon the newly acquired Lucas Braun to pitch in Avila’s vacated rotation spot later this week. Bummer debuted in relief of Lugo with the bases loaded and no outs in the sixth inning. He gave up a 2-run double, a 3-run home run, and another RBI double before escaping the sixth inning.
Nate Pearson and Steven Cruz each put up a quality inning of relief, so that was nice, I guess.
The Royals scored their lone run in the second inning when Luke Maile singled home John Rave. Jac Caglianone had a one-out double in the third inning, and that was the last hit KC would get off of Kyle Freeland until there was one out in the ninth when Salvador Perez hit his own one-out double and Starling Marte added a single. Still, Freeland worked around both for the first Rockies complete game since 2022. It was also Freeland’s first career complete game, which leaves Eduardo Rodriguez as the only pitcher in MLB history with 250+ starts and no complete games.
I don’t really have anything else to tell you about this game. The Royals are off tomorrow; the trade deadline is at 5 PM Central, so look out for Starling Marte and John Schreiber to be traded for your Royals-related entertainment tomorrow. At least Bobby Witt Jr. is scheduled to return Tuesday, barring a setback the likes of which have seemed to plague the Royals this year.
