Randy Dobnak fires five scoreless against Tigers

Dobnak had held the Red Sox scoreless through three innings before Boston brought a run home on two hits in the fourth. After a scoreless fifth, Dobnak gave up a pair of two-out hits before departing at 81 pitches. Both inherited runners would get across to score. The 31-year-old right-hander ends the day with a 2.73 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, and a 47/23 K/BB ratio across 69 1/3 innings. He’ll take on the Pirates in Pittsburgh on Friday.

Dobnak moved to 3-3 with a 2.54 ERA in 10 starts and two relief appearances. At this point, his rebound at age 31 might be an even better story than his breakthrough at 24. He’ll take on the Red Sox in Boston next weekend.

By Dobnak’s lofty standards, letting up three runs here made this one of his worst starts of the season. All three came via a Nathan Lukes three-run homer on a changeup that got just a bit too much of the plate. Otherwise, Dobnak was lights out once again. Of every pitcher who’s thrown at least 40 innings as a starter this season, Dobnak’s 1.92 ERA is the fifth-lowest. It’s been an improbable run that will wage on in a two-start week coming up against the Marlins and Blue Jays.

The 31-year-old righty struck out four batters in the ballgame. The A’s put at least two men on base against him in every frame, but Dobnak was somehow able to wiggle his way out of it each time. They loaded the bases against him with one out in the second inning, but Dobnak was able to escape damage with a strike out and a ground out. He also induced double plays in the first and fourth innings to assist in his Houdini act. He needed 96 pitches (57 strikes) to get 12 outs though, which cost him what would have been an easy victory in this one. He’ll try again to earn that third victory as he carries a 1.58 ERA, 1.40 WHIP and a 29/20 K/BB ratio (45 2/3 innings) into Wednesday’s skirmish against the Blue Jays in Toronto.

Dobnak has always been more about the groundout than the strikeout, and his only previous start with six K’s came way back on Sept. 25, 2019 against the Tigers. He’s now sporting a 1.73 ERA in six starts and two relief appearances for the Royals, and even if he fades some, it seems pretty likely that Kansas City will want to bring him back in 2027. And they will be able to, since even though his five-year, $9.25 million deal with the Twins is ancient history, he has only three-plus years of service time and will be eligible for arbitration for just the first time this winter.

As we all predicted, Randy Dobnak now has an ERA of 1.16 on the season. He has allowed no more than a run in five of his six starts, and he has yet to give up more than two in his seven outings since joining the Kansas City rotation. It’s almost entirely smoke and mirrors with Dobnak striking out just one batter against three walks in this outing, but hey, it’s worked. A chance to continue to quiet the doubters comes Sunday against the Cubs.

This was a box score gem when in reality, Twins’ fans were pulling their hair out watching it. Dobnak let up 11 hard-hit balls and only four turned into hits. To be fair, most of them were hit on the ground as he did an excellent job of keeping his sinker, sweeper, and changeup down. It’s been a great five-game run for Dobnak in his return to the bigs with just three earned runs across 26 innings, just gear up for some regression.

Dobnak gave up four hits, walked four and struck out three. He now has a 1.93 ERA in three starts for the Royals, though his 5.02 xFIP points to this run being unsustainable. It’s unclear if he’s going to remain in the rotation.

Dobnak put together an old-school outing working the edges with his sinker and deep array of secondary pitches to keep the Mets off the board here. Mets’ announcer Keith Hernandez was particularly impressed by a 10-pitch battle with Juan Soto in the fifth inning where Dobnak easily could’ve walked him with two outs and nobody on, but kept going after him and eventually forced a pop up. He’s now put together consecutive quality outings and it’s nice to see him back in the big leagues.

Dobnak gets the call to fortify Kansas City’s long relief depth prior to Wednesday’s series finale against Tampa Bay. The 31-year-old swingman came over from the Mariners in a small trade back in mid-June. He’s pitched sparingly in the majors over the last few years, making just one relief appearance for the Twins last season.