The Royals list southpaw Daniel Lynch IV as their probable starter for tomorrow’s series opener against the Cubs. He’ll oppose Kevin Gausman in the veteran righty’s team debut with Chicago.

It’s the first start of the season for Lynch. Anne Rogers of MLB.com reports that the Royals intend to give the 29-year-old lefty a legitimate rotation audition. Previous fifth starter Luinder Avila went down with an elbow injury and underwent Tommy John surgery.

The Royals needed someone to step into his rotation spot and essentially exhausted their depth. They’ve also lost Cole Ragans, Stephen Kolek, Ryan Bergert and Ben Kudrna for the season. Mitch Spence, who went on the Triple-A injured list on Monday, is their only depth starter on the 40-man roster.

Kansas City could’ve selected an organizational depth arm like Vince Velasquez or Ryan Ramsey to take the ball a few times in a noncompetitive season. Prospect Lucas Braun, acquired from Atlanta for Lane Thomas, is also essentially an MLB-ready option who’ll hopefully be a back-end starter.

The Royals instead opted to stretch out their top reliever. Lynch has tossed 46 innings of 1.96 ERA ball. He has a middling 19.1% strikeout rate but is getting ground-balls half the time with a sub-7% walk percentage. Lynch’s peripherals are closer to average than elite, but he has without a doubt been the best pitcher in a dismal bullpen.

Lynch came up as a starter and threw a career-high 131 2/3 MLB innings in 2022. He was still starting regularly in Triple-A as recently as two years ago, though his limited big league action that season came mostly in relief. He has been a full-time reliever for the past two seasons, mostly in a single-inning capacity. Lynch has only recorded more than four outs three times all season. His season-high pitch count is 37, which came in one miserable inning in bad weather during a game against the Twins on April 1.

The Royals will need to build Lynch’s workload gradually. He’d have time to make nine or ten starts if he keeps a rotation spot the rest of the way. By his third or fourth appearance, he could be pretty close to stretched out. Lynch has good control and a five-pitch mix that gives some confidence he can be a capable starter. He struggled in that role early in his career, but this is his first season relying more heavily on a sinker than on a bad four-seam fastball that was his primary pitch until 2025.

This should be an audition for Lynch to try to secure a spot in next year’s rotation. Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Noah Cameron will all be back. Although they’ve gotten good stopgap work from Randy Dobnak, he’s a depth arm who shouldn’t enter a season penciled into a rotation. There’s very little talent in the upper minors, so there’s a clear path for Lynch to compete with whatever offseason acquisitions the Royals make for a fourth or fifth starting role. Kansas City will also need to overhaul most of the bullpen this winter.