<\/p>\n
Royals righty Stephen Kolek<\/a><\/strong> has been diagnosed with a \u201cGrade 1+\u201d strain of his oblique, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com<\/a>. Kolek\u2019s original diagnosis of a strain came yesterday, but the Royals sent him for additional testing \u2014 the results of which they\u2019ve now received. He\u2019ll be shut down entirely for about a week before being reevaluated.<\/p>\n Even milder oblique strains can cost players upwards of a month. That the Royals are deeming this a Grade 1 \u201cplus\u201d suggests it\u2019s on the more severe side for a Grade 1 strain. A firm timetable won\u2019t be known until he\u2019s reevaluated after his shutdown, but with Opening Day one month out and Kolek in no-throw mode for the next week, it seems fair to suggest this calls his availability for the season opener into question.<\/p>\n Kolek had an uphill battle to claiming a spot in a rotation currently occupied by Cole Ragans<\/a><\/strong>, Seth Lugo<\/a><\/strong>, Michael Wacha<\/a><\/strong>, Noah Cameron<\/a><\/strong> and Kris Bubic<\/a><\/strong>, but he\u2019s at or near the top of the list for sixth starter options in Kansas City. The 28-year-old righty, who came to the Royals alongside Ryan Bergert<\/a><\/strong> in the July trade sending catcher Freddy Fermin<\/a><\/strong> to San Diego, started 19 games between the Friars and Royals in 2025 and posted a combined 3.51 ERA. His 16.7% strikeout rate was well south of the 22.2% league average, but his 6.7% walk rate was strong (compared to the 8.4% average) and Kolek kept more than 51% of batted balls against him on the ground.<\/p>\n Since Kolek has minor league options remaining, he might be bound for Triple-A even if he\u2019s able to return to the mound and sufficiently ramp up in time for Opening Day. A lengthier absence would compromise Kansas City\u2019s depth, although they\u2019ve improved on that front over the past year.<\/p>\n Cameron\u2019s breakout showing as a rookie gave the Royals another viable big league rotation arm alongside their slate of veterans. He faded after a historically excellent start but still finished the season with a 2.99 ERA, 20.5% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 41.4% ground-ball rate. Bringing in Kolek, Bergert and swingman Bailey Falter<\/a><\/strong> at last summer\u2019s deadline and righty Mitch Spence<\/a><\/strong> in a swap with the A\u2019s earlier this month<\/a> gives Kansas City several more arms to join the mix \u2014 all of whom (except Falter) have minor league options remaining.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.mlbtraderumors.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Royals righty Stephen Kolek has been diagnosed with a \u201cGrade 1+\u201d strain of his oblique, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com. Kolek\u2019s original diagnosis of a strain came yesterday, but the Royals sent him for additional testing \u2014 the results of which they\u2019ve now received. He\u2019ll be shut down entirely for about a week before being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2304634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[347944],"class_list":["post-2304633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-stephen-kolek"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Royals-Stephen-Kolek-Diagnosed-With-Oblique-Strain.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2304633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2304635,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304633\/revisions\/2304635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2304634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2304633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2304633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2304633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}