Bubic dominates with 7 scoreless, fans career-high 11 in Royals win

KANSAS CITY – With the Royals trying to get the bats going this season, the weight rests on the pitching staff to keep them in as many games as possible.

Luckily, the Royals boast a very strong staff. And on Friday, starter Kris Bubic was about as good as it gets.

Bubic tossed seven scoreless innings and struck out a career-high 11 batters in the Royals’ 2-0 win over the White Sox at Kauffman Stadium, debuting the colorful new City Connect uniforms with a victory that snapped a three-game losing skid.

“We’ll wear anything,” Bobby Witt Jr. said. “I just love a win.”

The Royals will take a win any time and any way they can get it, even if it means just two runs from the offense on Witt’s RBI double and Carter Jensen’s team-leading fourth home run of the season, a 425-foot no-doubter to right field that came off his bat at 113.7 mph.

But questions about the Royals’ current 0-for-30 streak with runners in scoring position can wait another day. Bubic’s scoreless start brought the Royals’ rotation ERA to 2.84 this season, fourth-best in MLB. In 14 games this season, Royals starters have allowed zero runs in four starts, one run or fewer in eight starts and two runs or fewer in 10 starts.

“We know that’s our strength, especially starting pitching,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “These guys [have] carried us. Even when the offense is going good, you need the starters to keep putting up zeros and keep the game where it is.”

In Bubic’s last start against the Brewers, he generated whiffs but said he’d much rather sacrifice a few of those for fewer walks (three), hits (four) and runs (four).

On Friday, Bubic didn’t have to sacrifice any of it.

The White Sox whiffed at a 38% clip against Bubic, who allowed just two hits and one walk during his outing. His four-seam generated seven of those whiffs, but it was his two breaking balls that shined the most, with his slider and sweeper generating four whiffs on seven swings apiece and the two pitches responsible for seven of Bubic’s 11 strikeouts.

Facing a White Sox lineup that featured just two left-handers, one might have figured Bubic would be reliant on his changeup against all of those righties. But of his 88 pitches, Bubic threw just 11 cambios.

The breaking balls were just that good, and Bubic and catcher Salvador Perez recognized that early in the game.

“If it’s not broke, keep going to it,” Bubic said. “Until we saw something different, we figured we’d keep going to it.”

Case in point: Bubic struck out White Sox leadoff hitter Chase Meidroth three times Friday night. The first came on a sweeper – that Perez correctly challenged as a strike – and the next two on sliders.

“The spin can play to both righties and lefties,” Bubic said. “... Just pairing both of those spin to righties with the sweeper early, being able to steal strikes with that, and then finishing with a fastball up or a gyro slider down below. The pairing was really good there, and the mix was really good.”

But he also struck out Munetaka Murakami, one of two lefties in the lineup, three times – the first looking at a slider, and the next two swinging on a slider and sweeper, respectively. And that was different than how Bubic attacked Colson Montgomery, the other lefty, with a lot of four-seams and sinkers until the final at-bat of the seventh, when Montgomery fouled off a four-seam and sinker, but then froze on a sweeper in the zone for strike three, the 11th and final K of Bubic’s night.

Bubic had achieved his previous career-high of nine strikeouts five times, the last being June 1, 2025, in Detroit.

Friday marked double digits for the first time in his career.

“I knew,” Bubic said with a grin. “I knew. Just to see the double digits, it’s nice. Pitchers, you always love strikeouts. It’s not going to be like that every game. But when you get the chance to get close or get there, you want to take advantage of it.”

There was probably a case to be made for Bubic to keep pitching, given that he finished the seventh at 88 pitches. But the Royals are cognizant of Bubic’s workload this season and had rested arms at the back-end of their ‘pen. Matt Strahm and Lucas Erceg closed out the shutout.

“It’s early in the season,” Bubic said. “That was my first time going seven ups as well, counting Spring Training. I’ll take it. Next time we get there, we’ll get eight. I’ll be ready for it.”