DETROIT -- Daniel Lynch’s performance during the Royals’ 5-4 loss to the Tigers at Comerica Park could best be described as a tale of two outings. A few of his starts have ended this way as the rookie navigates his first full MLB season, and though he’s taken some big steps forward this year, he knows the game can still speed up on him in the moment.

That’s exactly what happened on Friday night, when Lynch posted four strong shutout frames before a four-run stumble in the fifth.

“I just want to keep getting better,” he said. “I understand that I'm still young and this is still a new thing, but I'm pretty demanding on myself. And so I want to make sure that … I'm using that time to one, give the team a chance to win, and two, just continue to improve as much as I can.”

Though his slider didn’t draw as many swing-and-misses, Lynch was quite effective with his arsenal, ruling the mound confidently early in the series opener. A hit to begin his outing didn’t faze him, partly because Riley Greene’s infield single could also have ended in an out had second baseman Michael Massey’s throw not pulled Nick Pratto off the bag.

Lynch retired the next six Tigers in a row before allowing another leadoff single, this one to Willi Castro to begin the third. Castro’s contact was similarly unspectacular, with his hit floating into no man’s land behind second base. Again, Lynch rebounded by sitting down the next three Detroit batters.

The fourth inning followed a similar prototype, with Lynch walking Javier Báez on six pitches to open the frame before securing three outs. The pattern was established, and the kid was dealing.

“I thought he looked strong,” manager Mike Matheny said. “I thought his stuff looked good. A lot of arm-side misses, which I don’t think really allowed him to find a great slot for his slider, but he pitched good enough.”

The 25-year-old entered the fifth with just 57 pitches under his belt and a decent chance at a quality start. When Lynch sat down Spencer Torkelson swinging on a changeup to begin the 5th, that decent chance improved.

Until Castro went deep on the very next pitch and things unraveled quickly.

It was a curious thing, the home run. Lynch’s slider was well-placed -- he’d buried it low and in -- but Castro golfed at it anyway, a lucky shot that sent him sprinting full-speed until he rounded second before he even realized it was a home run. The ball traveled just 356 feet and barely cleared the wall in the left-field corner to bring Detroit to within one run.

Still no harm, really. It was the pair of walks that followed that wiped the confidence from Lynch’s air. He hopped up and down in place a couple of times in frustration after losing Ryan Kreidler on a full-count slider that dipped out of the zone, and Greene right after on a four-seamer that tailed far too wide.

Kreidler broke from second as Lynch was mid-delivery with his first pitch of the next at-bat, causing Lynch to freeze, step off the mound and balk the pair over to second and third. That earned him a mound visit from pitching coach Cal Eldred, who settled the lefty long enough to secure the second out of the frame, a sacrifice fly that scored Kreidler.

“He’ll get through those tough innings,” Matheny said. “He had the kind of stuff that gets through seven innings today; it’s just unfortunate that they all piled up in the fifth.”

But Lynch was still rattled, and Báez’s full-count, two-run homer that followed was the final straw. He rang up Miguel Cabrera to end the inning, but the potential for a good night was again undone by a one-frame hiccup, something Lynch has weathered in the past and continues to work on avoiding in future turns.

“I'm usually pretty good in those late innings,” he said. “It has happened a couple of times this season, but I've also had multiple games where I gave up runs early and pitched deeper into the game.

“I think the only thing I really can control is to go out during every single inning and try to make as many good pitches as I can.”