He’s nails
The last two decades of Kansas City Royals baseball has seen some excellent relievers holding down the fort at the end of close games. Since coming over to the team in the middle of last season, Lucas Erceg has started to squeeze into that conversation. And over the last week, Erceg has been nails in close contests, earning our unofficial Player of the Week designation.
Erceg has pitched four times over the last week: on the 4th, 6th, 7th, and 10th of April. Across those four appearances and four innings pitched, he’s been as close to perfect as you can get: zero runs allowed, one hit allowed, and one walk allowed. Kansas City won every game in which he pitched.
There are other candidates for player of the week, of course. Bobby Witt Jr. has been really solid, but his standards are so high that excellence is expected. I’m giving this week’s honors to Erceg in part because of his dominance and in part because what it means for the club. Thanks to his bullpen mates Hunter Harvey and Carlos Estevez, the Royals have three guys that can be trusted in high leverage situations and to cover the seventh through ninth innings without overextending themselves.
This is a huge deal. If you’ll recall last year, one of the problems with the team in the first half of the year was a bullpen that too often fumbled the lead or let a game get out of hand. The 2025 Royals are built to win close contests: great starting pitching, great defense, and great baserunning. Great bullpen arms are part of the equation, too.
Erceg will allow a run at some point, but his presence as the “Wade Davis” type of fireman helps the bullpen to be its best. While Erceg hasn’t struck out a lot of guys in this stretch, he’s made his mark, and I for one am happy to see Erceg work out of jams and stop them from happening in the first place.
So props, Lucas. Here’s to a long season where he can continue to be a rock when the leads are slim.