– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — At some point, the career year that Kansas City Royals starter Seth Lugo has to come crashing down, right? After a sterling April to start his Royals career? Nope.
After reaching the All-Star Game for the first time, he surely was going to have a second-half slide, right? Not exactly.
OK, tonight is the night where the Cinderella season starts to go south, against a fully healthy New York Yankees lineup, with two MVP candidates and future Hall of Famers smack dab in the middle of the order and inside one of the more home run-friendly parks in baseball?
Not only did Lugo’s stellar run not stop tonight, he twirled his pièce de résistance in the city he used to call his professional home.
Lugo threw seven scoreless innings, and did so in dominant fashion, as the Royals blanked the New York Yankees 5-0 to even the three-game set between the playoff-contending teams inside Yankee Stadium. Tommy Pham homered in the seventh while Salvador Perez had two hits and drove in two runs, his 99th and 100th runs batted in on the season.
But the story of the game was Lugo, the one-time New York Met and reliable reliever who left the Big Apple in free agency in 2022 mainly to pursue his goal of being a full-time starting pitcher in the majors. After throwing a career-high 146 1/3 innings as a starter with the San Diego Padres in 2023, Lugo joined the Royals before this season and, now, has become their undisputed ace, going into tonight tied for the American League lead in wins with 15.
That total is now 16 after tonight. After Lugo allowed a bloop single to center field to Gleyber Torres to begin the bottom of the first, the starter retired the next 17 batters until another Torres base hit in the sixth. Lugo allowed just three hits on the night while striking out 10 and not allowing a walk as his ERA on the season is now under three at 2.94.
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