Kansas City Royals put Brady Singer on IL and promote Jonathan Heasley from minors

Kansas City Royals pitcher Brady Singer went from being the scheduled starting pitcher for Friday night’s series opener with the Seattle Mariners to the injured list.

The Royals have selected Double-A pitcher Jon Heasley to the major-league roster to take Singer’s place. With the Royals already down to a five-man starting rotation with Mike Minor added to the injured list this week, Heasley figures to step into Singer’s spot for at least one night as the scheduled starting pitcher Friday night.

The Royals drafted Heasley, who has not pitched above Double-A, in the 13th round of the 2018 draft as part of the class that included pitchers Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, Kris Bubic and Singer as well as outfielder Kyle Isbel.

MLBPipeline.com ranked the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Heasley the Royals 14th-best prospect, while Baseball America ranked him the organization’s 17th-best prospect.

This season, Heasley is 7-3 with a 3.33 ERA, 120 strikeouts, 34 walks, 1.22 WHIP, in 22 games (21 starts) and 105 1/3 innings.

Heasley, 24, was at Kauffman Stadium on Thursday following the team’s afternoon game.

Singer’s placement on the IL did not include an injury designation.

This season, the Royals have not disclosed when players have gone on the COVID-related IL whether for symptoms, reaction to a vaccine, a positive test result, contact tracing or any other reason. Though, MLB has allowed players who’ve gone on the COVID IL to return in fewer than the typical 10 days required for a normal IL stint.

They’ve had multiple players this season have brief stays on the IL without injury designations, at times as short as one day stints. It’s not clear if that will be the case with Singer.

Singer, 25, made his major-league debut last season during the pandemic-shortened season.

He began this season in the starting rotation, his first full-length MLB season. He had an IL stint from July 20 through August 10 for shoulder fatigue.

In 37 career starts, Singer is 8-15 with a 4.57 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 185 strikeouts, 74 walks and a .261 batting average against in 185 innings.