KC Royals caught at a crossroads again as Lucas Erceg returns but Cole Ragans shelved

Whether it's on the field or in the transaction log the Kansas City Royals can't seem to catch a break these days.

A pummeling at the hands of the New York Yankees on Tuesday night continued Kansas City's scuffle towards .500 after an immaculate rebound at the end of April and beginning of May.

And countless injuries to key facets of this squad certainly haven't helped their cause, with the likes of Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Lucas Erceg, Hunter Harvey and Salvador Perez all either hitting the injured list or being hampered by an ailment for an extended period of time at one point or more this season.

Now, as the Royals made the expected and welcomed move to activate Erceg off the IL ahead of Wednesday night's contest, it came at the expense of their ace in Ragans heading back to the shelf just as quickly as he was activated.

KC Royals activate Lucas Erceg but send Cole Ragans back to the IL

Erceg’s return comes as no shock after Anne Rogers of MLB.com reported earlier this week that he was progressing both well enough and on time to make his scheduled Wednesday return.

In his lone outing of his rehab assignment in Triple-A Omaha on Sunday, Erceg looked great throwing a 1-2-3 fifth inning to keep his stat line shimmering full of zeros.

And given Hunter Harvey's latest setback last week, along with the lack of high leverage experience beyond Carlos Estévez in the bullpen, Erceg provides the Royals' staff with a much needed jolt.

However, the adage goes “what goes up must come down” meaning a corresponding move needed to be made in order to free up that spot for Erceg. And unfortunately for Kansas City it means that Ragans will swiftly be heading back to the IL.

The team announced that the trip to the 15-day IL for the southpaw would be due to a left rotator cuff strain.

Whether or not it's a relief that this isn't another groin ailment - which is forced Ragans to miss time twice already this year - remains to be seen, but relief or not, losing an All-Star caliber arm like this (regardless of how abnormally bad he’s looked this season) should never be considered a good thing.

Perhaps it's a bit of an explanation as to why his return to the mound on Thursday in St. Louis went so poorly, as he only managed to throw three innings of five-run ball off five hits (one of which was a home run), three walks and just four strikeouts.

For the sake of this season the Royals have been able to put together a top notch rotation without their ace being both available and consistently on top form, but a Royals rotation with a healthy Ragans will always be a better rotation.

If you can consider it a silver lining, this does buy the Royals some more time to figure out the long-term plan of their rotation for this season, as the rise of Noah Cameron and the recent masterclass from a once struggling Michael Lorenzen on Sunday have made it difficult for them to move off of a six-man rotation.

KC Royals make an additional roster move to further optimize bullpen

The saying goes “two steps forward, one step back”. Erceg’s return certainly constitutes as a step forward and Ragans’ is definitely a step back. That however leaves one more progressive step in this equation, which can be found in somewhat of a between the margins-type move.

The Royals tacked on the return of Jonathan Bowlan to the bullpen to their string of transactions on Wednesday afternoon, who put together quite the respectable season in the major leagues since being called upon.

Apart from a very rough 1.1 inning outing on Friday night in Chicago (resulting in his demotion), the former 2018 second round pick had put together a solid portfolio of work in 2025.

He entered that Friday blowup with a 1.86 ERA and 0.93 WHIP, and even after the fact still holds a very strong 34.9% whiff rate and optimal quality of contact metrics - with a 58.1% groundball rate and an 86.3 mph AVG exit velocity.

To make room for Bowlan’s return to the roster, the Royals seemingly ended the Trevor Richards experiment at the big league level by designating him for assignment.

After dazzling in Triple-A Omaha with a 1.69 ERA in seven outings, the veteran right-hander could not translate that to the MLB level, as in three innings pitched across as many outings, he threw to a dreadful 12.00 ERA, 3.00 WHIP and .438 BAA.

Whether or not Richards sticks around in the Royals organization remains to be seen, as his veteran status gives him the right to reject a minor league assignment, hence why he was DFA’d.

But the Royals still have a wealth of talent in their minor league pitching depth to call upon should they need any extra reinforcements in the near future.