For starters, Royals’ deep ‘pen is quite a relief

MINNEAPOLIS — Can the Royals succeed while being last in the American League in innings pitched by starters?

They did well enough with this unlikely formula last season when they were last in starters’ innings pitched and still went on to win the World Series.

The numbers are even more pronounced this year. Kansas City starters averaged 5.6 innings per start in 2015. They’re down to 5.3 innings per start this season. The league average is 5.8. The Royals’ numbers are not helped by the fact that two starters — Chris Young and Kris Medlen — are on the disabled list.

So when Edinson Volquez went 6 2/3 innings on Tuesday night in a 7-4 win over the Twins, this was well above the norm.

The Royals compensate, of course, with a dominant bullpen. They have built a winner from the back of the ‘pen, featuring power arms and legitimate depth. The concern would be that at some point the outstanding Kansas City relievers would be overworked, and their dominance would come to an end.

But that hasn’t been a problem yet. And there are valid reasons why it hasn’t. One of them is quality depth in the bullpen. The other is that none of the relievers has been ridden into the ground. So the starters’ relative lack of innings may be a concern but it hasn’t become a crisis.

“You’d like to get a little more depth out of [the starters], but it kind of runs in cycles,” manager Ned Yost said. “The majority of the time, we get 100 pitches out of them. You try to get every out you can [from the starters], but when you’ve got a bullpen that’s as good as ours, and you’re playing close games — one-, two-run games like we’re playing — it’s hard to continue pressing a starter once you get to the sixth …

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