Royals place Luinder Avila (forearm) on 15-day IL

Avila’s last two starts have seen him give up nine runs and walked seven in seven innings, taking his ERA to 5.53. The Royals don’t have any great options for replacing at the moment, but they surely will be looking for pitching depth if they continue to sell.

Avila gave up four hits, walked four and struck out two. He cruised through the first four innings before running into trouble in the fifth inning. Avila allowed the first three batters to reach base, struck out Gleyber Torres and was removed. Lefty reliever Matt Strahm came in to face lefty Riley Greene, but a ground ball led to a fielder’s choice and an error. Two runs scored on the play and four would score in the inning with three runs and two earned runs charged to Avila. He has a 4.81 ERA as a swingman for the Royals this year. Avila is lined up to face the Rockies on the road next weekend.

Avila, who has struggled in opening frames throughout this season, gets the ball without an opener after limiting the Giants to just two runs and piling up seven punchouts over 6 1/3 innings earlier this week. The unheralded 24-year-old has emerged as a back-end rotation stabilizer for Kansas City and is starting to routinely miss enough bats that he could be interesting from a fantasy standpoint, especially in deeper mixed leagues. It’s going to take some refinement from a command and control standpoint for him to make another leap, but he’s an interesting talent.

Avila walked one and struck out seven, which was his season high. He threw 70 percent of his pitches for strikes and posted a 13 percent swinging strike rate. On the season, he has averaged 60 percent of pitches for strikes, a 10 percent swinging strike rate, and just a 20.9 percent strikeout rate, so this was easily his best outing of the season. His slider was tremendous with an 81 percent strike rate and a 25 percent swinging strike rate as his main secondary against righties. His curveball was also great for him against lefties with an 18 percent swinging strike rate. Ever since his poor June 12th outing against the Astros, Avila has allowed 12 earned runs on 27 hits in 31 innings for a 3.48 ERA. It’s not elite production, but it could make him interesting in deeper leagues in his next start against the Tigers.

The Orioles got to Avila a bit in the second inning, lacing four singles off the righty to drive in two runs and give the O’s an early 2-0 lead. Avila would make it through the third inning without any damage, but gave up a 450-foot homer to Blaze Alexander in the fourth inning, breaking a 2-2 tie after the Royals plated two runs of their own in the top of the frame. Avila would pitch a scoreless fifth inning before being pulled to begin the sixth. Despite an inflated 5.08 ERA at the All-Star Break, Avila has been solid as of late for the Royals, allowing three earned runs or fewer in four of his last five starts.

Avila wasn’t effective, but the Royals were able to score five runs to keep him from picking up the loss. The right-hander has not shown much consistency since joining the Kansas City rotation, with a couple of solid efforts and some real clunkers. This was somewhere in the middle, but not what fantasy managers should be hoping for. Avila shouldn’t be in fantasy lineups for his scheduled start Sunday against the Phillies.

Avila fanned six and also handed out four free passes. The 24-year-old gave up only three hits with a run-scoring single by Junior Caminero representing the lone tally against him. He’s allowed one earned run or fewer in four of five starts since becoming a full-fledged member of Kansas City’s rotation back on June 1. He’ll close a two-start week with a challenging road matchup against the upstart White Sox on Sunday.

Avila struck out five and walked one against the highest-scoring lineup in baseball this season. The performance was even more surprising given that he didn’t make it out of the first inning in his last start, allowing a whopping eight earned against the Astros. Wednesday marked his fourth start of the year in his transition from the bullpen. His control makes him a risk-reward play against the Rays next time out.

It’d be almost impossible to script a worse start than Avila’s here. After 12 pitches, three runs were already home on a single and two home runs. After that, he retired the next two batters before a catastrophic five-batter sequence with three walks and two singles. He was mercifully pulled there and reliever Mason Black promptly allowed a grand slam to Yordan Alvarez, his second home run of the first inning. This was one of those starts to simply flush down the toilet and hope it can be moved on from. He’s scheduled to face the Nationals on the road next time out.

Avila was sharp through four hitless innings before loading the bases with none out in the fifth. He escaped with minimal damage after getting a sac fly and starting a double play on a comebacker from Ryan Kreidler. Apparently, that gave the Royals enough of a scare that they didn’t trust him to come back out for the sixth at 70 pitches. Avila has allowed one run over five innings in both of his starts to date, though that has included seven walks between the outings. He has a 28/19 K/BB overall in 31 1/3 innings this season. He’s doing enough to stick as a starter, but he’s not very interesting in fantasy leagues yet. He’ll likely face the Astros on Friday.