Prior to yesterday’s action, the Royals’ starting rotation had combined to pitch the second-most innings in MLB, they had allowed the second-fewest home runs per nine innings which has allowed them to achieve the third-best ERA, fourth-best FIP, and third-most fWAR.
There’s no argument that the Royals’ rotation has been a huge part of their success thus far. But there’s been some debate on social media about whether this is due to talent among those pitchers or just pure, dumb luck. As you might imagine, there is both some luck and some quality pitching happening, but to discuss this I think it makes the most sense to stop talking about the rotation as a whole and talk about the individual pitchers involved.