Kansas City Royals: Meet the initial Spring Training starters

Ned Yost has announced who will be starting the first three Spring Training games for the Kansas City Royals.

Games start on Saturday and the Kansas City Royals will take the field for the first time in 2019. This will be the first time we get a glimpse of the team and what they can do. It will also be time for the players locked into roster spot battles will show what they are capable of.

Per Jeffrey Flanagan, we know who will be starting the first few Spring Training games for the Royals and they are not guys vying for the rotation. Which, is pretty standard.

Game One

Glenn Sparkman will be getting the ball in the Kansas City Royals first Spring Training game against the Texas Rangers on Saturday. Last season he pitched 38 innings with a 4.46 ERA and 27 strikeouts.

He will hoping to earn a spot in the bullpen, but that does not seem likely. If Sparkman is going to earn a spot, it would likely have to be from poor performances from the likes of Drew Storen or Kyle Zimmer.

Game Two

The second game of Spring Training will be going to Sam McWilliams as he squares off against the Oakland Athletics. He has yet to pitch in the majors. As a Rule 5 selection if he makes it out of camp, he will be on the active roster and in the Kansas City Royals bullpen.

The general consensus is that McWilliams will likely be battling with fellow Rule 5 pick Chris Ellis for a roster spot. The team will be looking for which one might be the next Brad Keller, and most signs seem to point to McWilliams.

Game Three

Yost announced one more starter and that is Scott Barlow on Monday against the Colorado Rockies. He got his first taste of the MLB last season where he threw 15 innings for the Kansas City Royals with a 3.60 ERA and 15 strikeouts.

Barlow is in a similar situation to Sparkman. It will take some poor performances and potentially injuries for him to break camp with the team. The good news for both of them is that anything can happen in the game of baseball.

Reading The Comments

The first few comments on Flanagan’s tweet are inquiries as to who these names are. That is fair, but they are not guys who are competing for the rotation. They are guys trying to work their way into relevance.

Two of them have pitched for the Royals before, and one could be the future. At this point, it really does not matter who they are because baseball is back.

We are just days away from the return of Kansas City Royals baseball, and the guy bringing it back is Glenn Sparkman, who may or may not be on the team come Opening Day. But we should be grateful for him, because competitive baseball is back.