{"id":661158,"date":"2026-04-03T17:09:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661158\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T17:09:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:09:16","slug":"royals-reacts-results-lights-out-for-the-royals-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661158\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Reacts Results &#8211; Lights out for the Royals opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year, we ask questions of the most plugged-in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.royalsreview.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> fans and fans across the country. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartsurvey.co.uk\/s\/0DWS6R\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up here<\/a> to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Earlier this week, Carlos Est\u00e9vez went on the Injured List with a foot contusion. Until he returns, the Royals will need someone else to close games. So we asked who Royals fans would choose if they could have their druthers. The results were overwhelming in selecting one guy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">73% of respondents said they preferred that Lucas Erceg do all the closing for KC until Est\u00e9vez gets his mojo back, and it seems like Matt Quatraro agrees with them. In three save opportunities since Est\u00e9vez\u2019s injury, Erceg has gotten the call twice. The third game went to John Schreiber, but only because Erceg had already pitched two games in a row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Interestingly, fans were not at all high on once-and-now-again reliever Matt Strahm; he received only 4% of the vote, barely ahead of potential rookie Luinder Avila\u2019s 3% &#8211; Avila is set to make his first major league start tonight, in any case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">One in five thought that a closer by committee would be the best option since the Royals have so many relievers on their roster with late-game experience. Closers by committee always seem like shaky endeavors to me, so I\u2019m perfectly happy to just let Erceg handle things with Matt Strahm seeming to take over quasi-fireman duties, pitching in whatever situations late in the game. For example, pitching the seventh in yesterday\u2019s game because that was when the heart of the Twins order was due up, hoping that the lower part of the lineup would be easier for Steven Cruz to handle. Obviously, it didn\u2019t work out that way, but it made a lot of sense in the moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now, what I\u2019m curious about is whether everyone thinks Lights Out Lucas should just continue saving even when &#8211; or if &#8211; Est\u00e9vez has his foot and mechanics fixed. Depending on how long he\u2019s out and how well Erecg does, it could end up being a controversial decision either way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year, we ask questions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,77247,2596,2595,4,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-661158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansas-city-royals-discussion","13":"tag-kansascity","14":"tag-kansascityroyals","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116341883885915647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}