Heasley, getting ‘comfortable,’ tosses scoreless outing for the Kansas City Royals

Last week, Kansas City Royals rookie pitcher Jonathan Heasley dealt with the normal jitters and excitement commonly associated with a major-league debut.

With all of that anxiousness out of the way, Heasley stepped on the mound for his second start and showed command of three quality pitches in a hyper-efficient scoreless outing Saturday evening against the Tigers at Comerica Park in Detroit.

“Definitely more comfortable today, nerves weren’t quite as crazy,” Heasley said. “So I definitely felt a little more settled in. I had a good plan going in. I felt like I attacked the zone. I got some outs on quality pitches. I got some big help defensively from Nicky (Lopez), a couple really good plays out there.”

With things a little “slower” for Heasley with one start already under his belt, he tossed 5 1/3 scoreless innings and held the Tigers to three hits and two walks. Heasley got a no decision as the Royals fell, 5-1, to the Tigers.

A 6-foot-3, 225-pound Texas native, Heasley allowed just one extra-base hit, and threw 51 of his 87 pitches for strikes. He’s the fifth member of the Royals’ 2018 draft class to start a game for them this season.

The Royals entered the day leading the majors with 143 double plays, and they turned a pair behind him on Saturday.

“I thought he was terrific,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “He had everything, located everything right out of the gate. He made tough pitches. He made a number of 3-2 changeups, behind-in-the-count breaking balls. It was a great outing for him.”

Heasley, who the Royals called up from Double-A on September 17, spent this season at Double-A Northwest Arkansas. He compiled a 7-3 record with a 3.33 ERA, 120 strikeouts, 34 walks, 1.22 WHIP, in 22 games (21 starts) and 105 1/3 innings.

In his second start in the majors, he showed off a fastball that reached 95 mph as well as a curveball and changeup he used in varying counts for swings and misses or weak contact.

Matheny lauded Heasley’s ability to execute multiple pitches right out of the gate. Several of the Royals’ young starters have run into first-inning troubles recently.

The manager had to look no further than the ways hitters reacted to Heasley’s curveball to gather a sense of just how well that pitch was working.

“You could tell by the swings even on some of the guys that hit the breaking ball really well, he gets into counts even with two strikes and they’re still not taking comfortable swings,” Matheny said. “That tells you that it was really sharp today.”

Heasley recorded his three strikeouts with a called third strike on a curveball, a swinging strike on a changeup and a swinging strike on a curveball.

“Going into each game you want to try and have both of them working at the same time, but very rarely does that actually happen,” Heasley said. “So being able to have both of those and feeling comfortable with those in any count definitely made things much easier. Just having the confidence in the changeup tonight was huge for me. It got me out of some big situations.”

In the bottom of the fifth, Heasley worked around the lone extra-base hit he allowed, a one-out ground-rule double hit just inside the left-field foul line by Harold Castro.

The next two batters, Isaac Paredes and Dustin Garneau, were the only two batters Heasley faced with a runner in scoring position. Paredes popped out in foul territory and Garneau hit an inning-ending fly ball to left field.

Heasley struck out the first batter of the sixth, and then gave up a one-out walk before he turned it over to the bullpen.

“Heasley is awesome. I know him from back home,” said Royals outfielder/infielder Hunter Dozier, who had two extra-base hits and an RBI. “We workout together in the offseason, we did this past offseason. These past two starts, he has looked really good. I’m a big fan of him on the mound.”