{"id":2438758,"date":"2026-05-31T02:36:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2438758"},"modified":"2026-05-31T02:36:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:36:01","slug":"royals-remain-confident-in-lucas-erceg-despite-blown-saves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-remain-confident-in-lucas-erceg-despite-blown-saves\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals remain confident in Lucas Erceg despite blown saves"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/p>\nARLINGTON, TEXAS<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kansas City Royals have a leaky bullpen. And it\u2019s becoming a consistent problem for the the team.<\/p>\n

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Chief among those concerns are injuries. The Royals are missing key high-leverage relievers<\/a> in Carlos Est\u00e9vez, Matt Strahm and Nick Mears. Those three were considered go-to contributors for the relief unit.<\/p>\n

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Now, the Royals must rely on MLB veterans such as Daniel Lynch IV, Alex Lange, John Schreiber and Lucas Erceg among others. It\u2019s a mix of relievers who are new in their roles or not performing to expectations.<\/p>\n

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The Royals are tied with a league-worst 5.22 bullpen ERA<\/a>. The club has counted on Erceg to be the closer, but he has blown five save opportunities.<\/p>\n

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And on Saturday, he might\u2019ve squandered his biggest chance. The Royals rallied back from an early three-run deficit and handed Erceg a 6-4 lead in the ninth. However, he allowed three earned runs to score and didn\u2019t record an out in the inning.<\/p>\n

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The Royals suffered a 7-6 loss<\/a> in walk-off fashion.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve been terrible lately and kind of just trying to search for some answers,\u201d Erceg said. \u201cBut, going to go home and think about it. I\u2019ll be ready for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Royals expressed confidence in Erceg. Multiple players still believe Erceg is the right person to close out games at the moment. The problem is that he isn\u2019t getting people out with his high-velocity and command.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s something that KC Star columnist Sam McDowell explored earlier this week<\/a>. And Erceg admitted as much on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe coaching staff gave me a sheet the other day that basically in black and white was saying that when I get behind 1-0, that hitters hit .300 (or something). And when I get ahead, they hit .100 (or something). So it\u2019s pretty cut and dry what my No. 1 job is, and we\u2019re not doing that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Royals plan to stick beside Erceg. However, Royals manager Matt Quatraro felt that the swing-and-miss is missing in his arsenal. It\u2019s contributed to his rough patch and is something both sides look to get corrected.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe\u2019s got good stuff, and we\u2019ve seen him at his best with us,\u201d Quatraro said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s a competitor, and that one really hurts. When you give him the ball, you like your chances. And the last game was a little odd. There were things that happened, you know, in the game against the (New York) Yankees. And this one, he was unable to put the guys away.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Erceg now sports a 6.33 ERA in 23 games. He has recorded 18 strikeouts and walked 13 batters in 21 and 1\/3 innings. Meanwhile his strikeouts per nine innings (7.59) is significantly lower, and opponents own a .409 BABIP (batting average on balls in play).<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt starts with me,\u201d Erceg said. \u201cYou know, we got behind early, and we did a good job getting back the lead. I think six unanswered, and it\u2019s up to me to close the door. And I didn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Royals are still comfortable turning to Erceg in a late spot. And his teammates believe in him to deliver once his name is called.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt sucks, but you know, that\u2019s the game,\u201d Royals catcher Carter Jensen said. \u201cYou know, we still, as a team, we back Erceg. We know how good he is. You know, little rough stretch, everybody goes through it. And we\u2019re confident he is going to be just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Royals will turn to veteran starter Michael Wacha in Sunday\u2019s series finale. If the game is close, Erceg could be called upon once again.<\/p>\n

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And he vows to be ready.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTen out of ten,\u201d Erceg said of his confidence to stay ready. \u201cTomorrow is a new day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This story was originally published May 30, 2026 at 8:48 PM.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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Jaylon Thompson<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jaylon Thompson covers the Royals for The Kansas City Star. He previously covered the 2021 World Series and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Jaylon is a proud alumnus of the University of Georgia.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/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.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON, TEXAS The Kansas City Royals have a leaky bullpen. And it\u2019s becoming a consistent problem for the the team. Chief among those concerns are injuries. The Royals are missing key high-leverage relievers in Carlos Est\u00e9vez, Matt Strahm and Nick Mears. Those three were considered go-to contributors for the relief unit. Now, the Royals must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2395777,"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":[],"class_list":["post-2438758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/KC-Royals-snap-4-game-win-streak-in-5-2-loss-to.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438758","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=2438758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2438759,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438758\/revisions\/2438759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2395777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2438758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2438758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2438758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}