Kansas City Royals’ Carlos Hernández still trying to find his way on the mound

Last summer, Kansas City Royals right-hander Carlos Hernández gave people plenty of reason for optimistic, lofty, ambitious thinking about his future. All that may very well still apply. But right now, Hernández is struggling and searching for answers.

Hernández, 25, made his seventh start of the season in Thursday afternoon’s loss to the Chicago White Sox in the series finale at Kauffman Stadium. For the sixth time in those seven starts, he didn’t make it through five full innings.

In this case, he pitched into the fourth inning but did not record an out before the bullpen took over. Hernández allowed three runs, five hits and five walks in three innings plus four batters. He also struck out three in the 77-pitch outing (44 strikes). He walked the first batter of the game.

“That’s not what he was looking for,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Hernández’s outing. “Lead walk. Trying to get his emotions under control and trying to get into a rhythm, but it was a bad pace right from the beginning, just a bad pace of play. That doesn’t usually lend itself to good play in general.”

Hernández’s three innings were a season-low. Of the 19 batters he faced, 10 reached base. Three of the five hits came with runners in scoring position. He still managed to exit the game with the Royals still leading at the time.

In seven starts (29 2/3 innings), Hernández has walked 20 batters for a rate of 6.1 walks per 9 innings.

“We’ve talked about how guys are just trying to find it when you know the stuff is there, you know you’ve got good enough stuff to be very good,” Matheny said. “He ended the season last year as our best starter. Then all of a sudden, you’re not able to repeat and you start searching. What do I need to do?

“So you can go through a 100 different things in your head until you find — we’ve talked about it many times — young players haven’t really found who they need to be when they get on the rubber.”

The Royals may have a decision on their hands with Hernández similar to those they’ve had with Kris Bubic and Brady Singer. All three made their debuts in the majors during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, and they jumped levels of the minors in the process.

Both Bubic and Singer have had to go down to Triple-A this season in efforts to refine their pitching.

Singer, who pitched seven scoreless innings and had a career-high nine strikeouts in the second game of Tuesday’s doubleheader, seems to have made himself a strong candidate to fill Hernández’s rotation spot if the Royals either move Hernández to the bullpen or option him to the minors.

Last season, Hernández ranked second on the team (minimum 10 starts) with a 3.68 ERA, and his ERA was the second best by a Royals pitcher in the last five seasons (minimum 85 innings), behind only Brad Keller’s 3.08 ERA in 2018.

He notched his first win as a starter on July 29 against the White Sox, and from that point until the end of season he went 5-1 with a 2.51 ERA and a .212 opponents’ average. During that span, he ranked third in the American League in ERA behind Frankie Montas (1.92) and Cal Quantrill (2.03).

“Just keep on working and keep on learning,” Hernández said of his takeaway from Thursday’s outing with assistant strength and conditioning coach/Latin American coordinator Luis Perez interpreting from Spanish to English.

Hernández attributed his slower tempo on the mound to a “different strategy” in order to help him locate pitches better.

Asked about the struggles he’s been trying to get a handle on so far this season, Hernández said that he considers the struggles a result of both mental and mechanical issues.

“It’s a combination of the two,” Hernández said. “Baseball is a very mental game, and you’ve just got to keep at it and one day hope that everything falls into place and you have good starts.”

Hernández had trouble with his grip and being able to command his fastball consistently. The velocity also varied throughout the outing. His four-seam fastball ranged from 90 mph to 98 mph.

The movement became difficult for him to predict, and he felt like the spin coming out of his hand was inconsistent as well, which led to him aiming it at times.

Even with those inconsistencies, he registered his second-highest swing and miss rate (10 whiffs on 77 pitches, 13 percent) this season.

“He was commanding pretty good his breaking ball pitches,” Royals catcher Sebastian Rivero said. “His curveball, he was throwing for a strike. His fastball, he couldn’t feel the ball in his hand much. That’s why he was not controlling it. But he threw really good changeups, really good breaking balls and that’s how we got him through the innings he threw.”