Jakob Junis will get another shot in the KC Royals starting rotation this week

Jakob Junis’ stellar spot start last week has garnered him another turn in the Kansas City Royals’ starting rotation. But manager Mike Matheny didn’t dance around the fact Junis’ future role on the pitching staff remains unclear.

Junis, a right-hander, will make his second start of the season on Thursday night in the series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays at Kauffman Stadium. The club had held off on announcing Junis as the starter in case he was needed to pitch in relief on Sunday or Monday.

“Usually, we’ve got at least an idea and a bunch of information, but this is, ‘Hey, we’re watching a different animal right now. Let’s be open,’” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I think we all know we have a lot riding on our starting pitching, and we need our starting pitching to be strong. If Jake can continue to evolve as a pitcher with some of the stuff that he has now, we’d be foolish not to continue to take a look at it.”

Junis started in 83 of his first 89 appearances in the majors entering this season. He led the Royals in wins in 2018 and 2019. Though opposing hitters enjoyed much more success the second and third time through the batting order against Junis.

Last year, a COVID-19 infection and injury largely disjointed Junis’ pandemic-shortened season. He made eight appearances, including six starts, and pitched just 25 1/3 innings.

This spring training, the Royals considered Junis a candidate for their starting rotation as well as to pitch out of the bullpen.

He added a cutter to his arsenal this offseason, which has given him a different dimension as a starting pitcher. He impressed the Royals staff with his performance during spring training in Arizona.

“The thing that’s really changed this is how he has changed as a pitcher,” Matheny said. “The way that he is attacking hitters, like we saw in Cleveland. How do you not take another look at that as a starter?

“Realizing full-well, this could be a very potent weapon out of the bullpen and could pitch several leverage innings.”

Last Wednesday after having pitched out of the bullpen on back-to-back days the previous weekend, Junis started on the road against the Cleveland Indians.

With a short leash because of his previous workload and limited rest, Junis expected to have a short outing in Cleveland. Instead, he struck out six and allowed one hit in five innings.

He threw just 58 pitches to get through five innings, and he recorded 10 of the 15 outs on three pitches or fewer.

Matheny did not indicate if Junis will have a relatively limited pitch count for Thursday’s start.

“It’s a unique situation,” Matheny said. “We talked about it being a little more condensed last time, but he was so efficient that he went pretty far despite not having a huge pitch count. Ideally, we’d like to see that again.

“We’ll just have to keep an eye on him.”