Matheny: Daniel Lynch ‘Did a Great Job of Competing’ Despite Loss

Lynch didn't have his best stuff, but Matheny appreciates his much-needed gritty performance.

All good things must come to an end. On Wednesday in California, the Kansas City Royals' semi-successful west coast road trip rounded out on a sour note. In a late-night matchup against the Los Angeles Angels, Kansas City couldn't muster enough offense to compete and ended up losing by a final score of 5-0.

The performance of the bats from the previous outing — a 12-11 win in extra innings — seemed to have sapped just about any remaining magic at the plate for Kansas City. The Royals collected just two hits all night, failing to capitalize on any mistakes from Los Angeles pitchers. That didn't make Daniel Lynch's job much easier on the mound, nor did a strike zone that opened the game on a very shaky note. 

Lynch battled himself and that fateful inning throughout the entire night, failing to maintain much efficiency with his offerings. He issued five walks against the Angels and needed 104 pitches to get through 42/3 innings. Aside from that, however, he indeed was solid in general. Not only did Lynch induce nine whiffs, but he also had five strikeouts in the process. When combined with just three hits and a lone run surrendered, things could've been much worse for Kansas City's young left-hander. After the game, Royals manager Mike Matheny praised Lynch for battling. 

"I thought he did a great job of staying in it," Matheny said. "Two walks early took him to a high pitch count, 30, but you look at what he gave up today... he gave up two infield singles and a bloop. Two walks in the first and the fifth just put him into a bad spot, but he did a great job of competing."

Matheny singled out Lynch's slider, citing it as a pitch for which he may not have quite had his typical feel. Lynch went to it 29% of the time — below his season average of 34.3% — and got six whiffs on the offering. With that said, his command was inconsistent. (As shown in the chart above; Lynch had quite a few misses that caught a bit too much of the plate or were elevated higher than they should've been.) Nothing was particularly sharp for the 25-year-old, as his four-seam fastball wasn't fooling anyone and his changeup had similar inconsistencies to the slider.

Nevertheless, Lynch did avoid a premature exit when the Royals desperately needed at least four or five innings from their starter. Nearly completing the fifth is a feat in and of itself, especially given such a taxing first inning and the aforementioned limited strike zone. When he left the game, Lynch gave Kansas City a very fair chance to come back and tie the game up. The bullpen surrendered four runs over the remainder of the outing, although Matheny reiterated that things would've been much direr had Lynch struggled immensely and been pulled out of the gate. 

"We pitched every available arm tonight," Matheny said. "He [Lynch] was going to have to go. It was going to be tough if it would have gone any longer because he was going to have to continue to pitch. We just wouldn't have had enough guys to cover him. He did a great job of getting us right there — almost through five — but we didn't have a lot of guys to go through." 

On Thursday, the Royals get a much-needed day off in Kansas City before gearing up for a home series against the Oakland Athletics — a team they just recently faced in California. The bullpen needs the rest more than any other unit, as Tuesday's big win came at a big cost. Lynch did his best to prevent further damage from being done on Wednesday and while he wasn't perfect, Matheny was still proud. Now, both Lynch and the Royals will get back to work and aim for a better outcome their next time out.