“Baseball is a long game,” says pitcher acquired in free agency for $22.1 billion…team is 13-0 with a 6.84 ERA.

Right-hander Jordan Lyles, 33, whom the Kansas City Royals signed as a free agent last winter for two years and $17 million, has lost 10 consecutive starts without a win. Kansas City has lost 13 games on the day of Liles’ start. The team’s highest-paid pitcher is struggling.

In his last start on Aug. 8 against the Miami Marlins, Liles allowed five runs on six hits (one homer) and one walk with two strikeouts in seven innings. As the team fell to 1-6 and suffered its 10th loss of the season, Riles was content to lower his ERA from 6.89 to 6.84.

After giving up a three-run homer to Jesus Sanchez in the third inning, Liles held on through the seventh without allowing another run 스포츠토토. He returned to the mound in the eighth, but gave up back-to-back singles to put runners on first and second with no outs. Reliever Jose Cuas gave up a two-run double to Brian De La Cruz, pushing Liles’ lead to five runs.

Through 13 games on the season, Riles is 10-0 with a 6.84 ERA in 73⅔ innings pitched. He hasn’t been out of the starting rotation, but has yet to win a game. Kansas City has lost all 13 of Riles’ starts.

He is the first pitcher in the major leagues in the last 25 years whose team has been shut out in the first 13 starts of a season. The last two pitchers to do so were Todd Leach of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2001 and Jose Urena of the Miami Marlins in 2018, both of whom lost 12 games.

In that span, Leach had a 5.15 ERA in eight losses and Urena had a 4.41 ERA in seven, so neither pitcher was terrible. It’s a case of bad luck, but with an ERA of nearly seven runs, Liles can’t be blamed for his luck. That’s the highest ERA among the 66 pitchers who have pitched a full game.

According to MLB.com, Liles said after the game, “If I had pitched a little better, maybe the outcome would have been different, but this is my season so far. My record isn’t that bad, and I’m trying to stay positive. Baseball is a long season. I’ve got another four months to try and improve,” he said, vowing to rebound for the rest of the season.

While his ERA is high, his WHIP (1.39 to 1.29) and batting average (.276 to .244) are better than last year, when he won 12 games. Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro said, “He’s pitched a lot of long innings this year, which is something he’s always done. He’s durable and resilient. He did it again today and kept us in the game.”

He deserves credit for going the most innings on the team. He’s gone five or more innings in 11 of 13 games, including three nine-inning complete games. But he’s a free agent that small-market Kansas City spent a lot of money on, and he’s not pitching at this quality right now. He needs to cut down on his league-high 18 home runs. Liles also gave up a league-high 38 home runs in 2021 with the Texas Rangers.

Liles, who made his major league debut with the Houston Astros in 2011, is a veteran of 13 seasons with eight teams, including the Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh, Texas, and Baltimore Orioles, with a career record of 334 games (227 starts), 1400 innings, 66 wins, 100 losses, two saves, a 5.19 ERA, and 1077 strikeouts. He’s won 35 games with double-digit win seasons in three of the last four years, but one win is hard to come by this year. Kansas City, which has lost three straight, is also struggling, going just 18-44 with a 2.9 winning percentage, good for fifth place in the American League Central.