Kansas City Royals left-hander Kris Bubic emerged as one of the best starting pitchers in baseball this season, but the excitement was unfortunately short-lived.
Bubic was placed on the IL yesterday after being diagnosed with a left rotator cuff strain. Now, the Royals have offered more detail on their star’s status and announced the pitcher will miss the remainder of the 2025 season.
It’s an incredibly tough break for both the franchise and Bubic himself. After working in a bullpen role last year, the pitcher shifted back to the starting rotation this season and earned the first All-Star appearance of his career. Over the course of 116.1 innings, Bubic amassed an 8-7 record with a career-best 2.55 ERA, a 1.18 WHIP and 116 strikeouts.
A deeper look into the stats emphasizes the impressiveness of the 27-year-old’s work. Bubic posted career-bests with a 7.58 H/9 and miniscule 0.46 HR/9 while allowing just six long balls on the season. His savant page is almost exclusively red as well with rankings inside the 70th percentile or better in most advanced metrics — a 91st-percentile pitching run value, 90th-percentile chase percentage and 87th-percentile average exit velo are just a few highlights.
Losing Bubic certainly hurts the Royals, a team which sits third in the AL Central at 52-54 as they fight to stay alive in the Wild Card race. Without a top-tier offense, Kansas City relies more on their pitchers than most franchises and will miss their star lefty in particular through the remainder of the campaign. Bubic had also garnered some interest ahead of the July 31 trade deadline, so the Royals likely find themselves unable to make a deal which could have yielded a significant return.
This article will be updated when more details are made available.
