Expectations must be tempered when it comes to Royals' newest rotation member

After riding some exceptionally high momentum to start the first week of August, the Kansas City Royals were quickly brought back down to earth in Boston on Monday, after their American League Wild Card rivals in the Red Sox took the series opener 8-5.

This loss was particularly difficult to watch, as it was the Royals newly acquired rotation piece in Bailey Falter who was shelled in his debut.

Through 4.0 innings of work, 28-year-old southpaw surrendered seven earned runs off eight hits (one HR) and two walks with just a pair of strikeouts while throwing 88 pitches.

It was an ugly way to start his Royals tenure and showed that while he still should be considered a valued addition to this staff, expectation need to be tempered.

Expectations must be tempered when it comes to Bailey Falter

As mentioned, Bailey Falter has already and will do a lot for this Royals rotation. He was brought in - at very reasonable cost I might add - to address KC's desperate need to fill their rotation out, in a manner that wasn't bullpen days or spot starts from veteran's passed their prime like Rich Hill, after the losses of Cole Ragans, Michael Lorenzen and Kris Bubic to the injured list.

His time in Pittsburgh proved he was capable at eating innings, which is exactly what the Royals need at the moment to avoid taxing their bullpen, throwing to 113.1 innings in 2025 before trading his Pirates yellow for Royals blue.

And the Royals saw glimpses of that on Monday. While he wasn't able to go more than four frames, the fact he was able to somewhat weather the storm after a nightmare five-run first should be applauded to certain degree.

That being said, the Royals saw first-hand some of the flaws that Falter has to his game that could rear their ugly head again this season.

Falter's underlying metrics are nothing to write home about by any means.

The most glaring issue has been his inability to effectively strike hitters out. Now strikeouts aren't the be all and end all of success for a starter, however a fifth percentile K-rate, third percentile whiff rate and 10th percentile chase rate aren't ideal numbers by any stretch. Pair that with the fact he's not particularly countering that with a good groundball rate - his 36.6% mark ranks in the 23rd percentile - and suddenly he's reliant generating outs via flyballs and line drives.

This poses a problem in particular with Falter as his quality of contact metrics don't tell the best story as well. His 44.5% hard-hit rate ranks in the 20th percentile, his 9.6% barrel rate in the 28th percentile and his 90.2 mph AVG exit velocity in the 28th percentile as well.

While his sub-20th percentile expected metrics - 18th percentile xERA and 19th percentile xBA - worked to push the expectation tempering narrative already, there comes a point where seeing it first-hand drills it home.

Not only did he only muster two punch outs, he also surrendered two of the three hardest hit balls in the game - a Jarren Duran first inning home run (109.9 mph) and a Wilyer Abreu third inning single (108.6 mph). On top of that, of the nine balls the Red Sox hit above 100 mph, five were surrendered by him.

Again, I want to preface, one bad start doesn't mean Flater is suddenly doomed. After all, he entered the Royals rotation with a respectable 3.73 ERA and even after Monday's blowup, four of his five pitch offerings held opposing BA clips of .250 or under and three held opposing SLG rates of .430 or lower.

Something is obviously working for Falter this season. However, Royals fans need to brace themselves for rough outings like this every so often when it comes to him.

He's a valued addition and undeniably an upgrade on what they had, but he shouldn't be considered the outright savior of this staff.