John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports
Wade Davis, welcome to the ground floor.
Perhaps it was a little too good to be true, but it seemed not so long ago that we were talking about the Kansas City Royals hurler’s surprising seven-inning shutout domination of the then-streaking Atlanta Braves, and how he’d thrown 12 innings without giving up a run in a two-start stretch.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed that high point of the Wade Davis Experience, because the slide downhill sure hasn’t been fun for either the righty or the Royals.
The tumble continued on Monday, when the 27-year old was subjected to his second shelling in as many starts — this one at the hands of the Cleveland Indians.
There’s not a whole lot of positives to take home here: from the ominous first-inning home run coming off the bat of Jason Kipnis all the way to the disastrous fifth inning that spelled his early exit, Davis simply didn’t have it on this night, and did nothing to give his team a chance en route to the Tribe’s 9-0 loss.
What an inning it was too — a six-run mess littered with five hits and a walk, four of them of the extra-bases variety, and punctuated by a Ryan Raburn home run that mercifully knocked the right-hander out of the game to be rescued by the surprisingly-excellent Luke Hochevar.
In total, Davis allowed a whopping eight runs on 12 knocks, both tying an wanted career-high established in 2011, when he blew up just as spectacularly over 2.2 innings.
So if there’s something to be taken out from this for the Royals, perhaps it’s the fact that … it just can’t really get worse from here?
On a more serious note, the swift regression that Davis has shown over the last two starts has been a major disappointment for Kansas City, and while he’ll undoubtedly get a few more shots at it based on the goodwill gained from the progress he showed earlier on (the team is rightly determined to see if he can cut it as a starter), the Royals are not exactly without options.
No, they’re probably (I hope) not going to go down the Hochevar route again, but Bruce Chen, who hasn’t allowed an earn run thus far in long relief, could be a temporary patch. There’s also Danny Duffy and Felipe Paulino, who will both be aiming for for Minor League rehab assignments in a month or so.
All of which is to say that Davis aren’t going to be afforded the longest leash in the world, and he’s going to have to hit the up button quickly on this ride unless he wants to head back to the bullpen some point soon.
