Royals’ thin starting pitching depth may not have any answers beyond Mitch Spence

When the dust settled on Monday evening, it was a familiar story for the Royals in the last week of baseball. A series opener against the Washington Nationals yielded no win, instead a 7-3 loss and another blown lead. Kansas City has one of the league's highest totals of blown leads, and a five-run bottom of the fifth inning buried the Royals in a hole they could not overcome.

But the way those runs came in, against pitchers Mitch Spence and Mason Black, underscored the team's troubling lack of pitching depth not even halfway through the 2026 season.

The Royals left spring training with a notable amount of starting depth, even with Stephen Kolek and Alec Marsh banged up. But as the season has gone along, the starting corps has become thinner and thinner. Ryan Bergert and Ben Kudrna are gone for the season. Kris Bubic and Cole Ragans cannot shake their respective injuries. Seth Lugo takes a freak line drive and, while he only misses a start, it adds a further pinch to Kansas City's situation.

Spence and Black were supposed to be the organizational depth, the insurance policy Kansas City needed to get through the season. Sure, they were never going to be the guys taking the ball every fifth day or serving as the team's stopper, but tossing competent innings is still valuable in today's game. Unfortunately, neither man has shown the ability to post such outings.

Spence's ERA in 8.0 innings is nearly old enough to start high school next year, and the 13.50 mark comes from just two spot starts that have both been pure implosions. The Washington native is walking more batters than he is striking out, all while allowing 11 hits to the 41 batters he has faced. No one should have expected him to be stellar in Kansas City. There was a reason he was available for trade this offseason after all.

But Spence hasn't looked anything like the man who tossed 236.0 innings for the Athletics organization from 2024-2025. Spence is in a spot where fans should not be looking for where the successes start, but where his shortfalls and failures end.

Black is in no better of a spot. Heading into the 2026 campaign, he still carried prospect status despite being shipped over from the San Francisco Giants. Black could not hang on as a starter in 2024 with that organization and finally needed a change of scenery.

The Royals found value in him coming out of the bullpen for most of this season, but he has lost that mojo in recent outings. Across his last three games, Black has allowed at least one earned run and at least one walk in each appearance, all while walking more batters than he has struck out. It is almost as if allowing free baserunners is a thing pitchers should avoid doing.

Are Mitch Spence, Mason Black a cause or side effect of Royals' pitching issues?

Now, while Black and Spence were major contributors to Kansas City losing Monday, the fact that they were there in the first place is the real problem. With injuries mounting, the Royals are scrambling for pitchers to turn to. That is why fans saw a mad scramble of minor league contract additions and the trade for reliever Connor Seabold this week.

Things are worst in the starting ranks, where the next man up is not a trusted arm or a notable prospect, but rather Ryan Ramsey or Aaron Sanchez, both of whom own ERAs north of 5.00 in Triple-A Omaha. Although the International League is known for favoring batters, neither pitcher is putting up a performance worthy of moving up to the majors.

What can Kansas City do to fix this? Plenty. They could have a kneejerk reaction and look to trade away their limited prospect capital for pitching help, or stumble upon a favorable deal like last year's swap with the San Diego Padres. But the reality begs the question, why would they do something like that? The Royals' season is gone and continues to find new obstacles, especially with Maikel Garcia now facing a potential IL trip after leaving Tuesday's game with left hand soreness. Why would the Royals dig themselves a deeper hole when doing so will likely not change the outcome of the 2026 season as a whole?

Kansas City will likely make other minor moves to try and keep the pitching staff afloat, but any realistic move that would be an undoubted difference maker does not seem realistic. The Royals continue to remind fans that it can get worse, and the pitching performances are a major display of how that Buddy Bell adage rings true.

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