Making official what manager Ned Yost talked about last week, the Royals announced their rotation for the ALDS versus the Wild Card game winner: Yordano Ventura, not Johnny Cueto, will get the Game 1 assignment against the Yankees or Astros, followed by Cueto in Game 2 and Edinson Volquez in Game 3.
It’s quite a turnaround for Ventura, who pitched his way out of the rotation and was briefly demoted to Triple-A, only to quickly return and go 7-1 with a 2.38 ERA in his final 11 starts.
When the Royals acquired Cueto from the Reds they did so with the intention of the impending free agent becoming their top-of-the-rotation ace, but he mostly struggled with a 4.76 ERA in 13 post-trade starts.
Volquez led the Royals with 200 innings, starting 33 games with a 3.55 ERA and 155/72 K/BB ratio while allowing just 16 homers in 850 plate appearances.