Bobby Witt Jr. has a nickname for Seth Lugo. How the Royals starter lived up to it

The walk from the mound to the Kauffman Stadium home dugout required about 17 seconds, and Royals starting pitcher Seth Lugo spent at least a few of those formulating a case in his head.

For what?

Playing one more inning of baseball.

Truth is, actually, he’d spent a bit longer than 17 seconds on the topic. More like a decade. It was back in college that Lugo, now 34, hatched a career-long ambition: Throw a complete game.

On the slow stroll to the dugout, having tossed only 89 pitches through eight innings, Lugo wondered if he’d have to talk his manager into giving him a shot.

“I wasn’t sure, but, yeah, I was ready to do some talking,” he said.

In the Royals’ bullpen, comprised of the same group that began the game out there, the relievers initially spent a couple of hours conversing about Lugo’s start, which was so rhythmic that the conversation eventually turned to something else.

“Maybe they won’t need us today,” left-hander Kris Bubic would later say.

In the dugout, Bobby Witt Jr. hurried to get his bat and helmet, slated to lead off the bottom half of the eighth because, oh, yeah, the game was still tied. It wasn’t just the manager who needed to provide Lugo a shot — the KC offense did, too.

As the hottest hitter on the planet reached the on-deck circle, he heard a quick phrase.

“Get me a run.”

Witt recognized the voice: Lugo.

The offense got him three runs.

The manager gave him one more inning.

Lugo threw the first complete game of his career to cap a 4-1 Royals win and a sweep of the dreadful Chicago White Sox. And I’m not sure there’s a sentence that better encapsulates the first half of a resurgent Royals season.

Except that, OK, it came to open the second half of Lugo’s season. Had it been the former, perhaps he would have been pitching in the first inning of the All-Star Game instead of a middle inning.

The point is, though, is that this has been a long time coming if you’ve followed Lugo’s first season in Kansas City. A long time coming even for a relatively new starter, and even in an era of baseball that devalues complete games — because it so fits with what the Royals did value this winter.

Lugo did not walk a single hitter and punctuated his first complete game with a 93.5 mph four-seam fastball and a leg twirl for the 27th out and his sixth strikeout.

Put the emphasis on the first half of that word: strike.

Lugo has been one of baseball’s best strike-throwers this season, precisely what a team that that provided far too many free passes a year ago sought. It’s only appropriate, then, that this was why he’d long wanted to throw a complete game:

“It means you’re doing some right stuff — it means you’re getting ahead of hitters or attacking hitters, not throwing many balls,” Lugo said.

A fitting description for Sunday, sure.

But a fitting description of this season, too.

Lugo has provided the Royals with top-of-rotation production for a team that hasn’t honestly used that phrase — top-of-rotation — in years. But it’s not just the success. It’s how he’s achieved it.

He throws anywhere between six and 10 pitches, depending on whom you ask, and he’ll tell you it’s the latter. He settles on his best for each game, but when he’s forced to face a lineup a fourth time, he’s a tad more ready than most.

And he still manages to fit them all into the strike zone.

“You can’t chase him around the zone, because then you’re guessing,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.

Chase.

In the zone.

That was, until recently, a novel concept here, one that requires a pitcher to be so confident with his stuff that the first priority is just to ensure he doesn’t beat himself. Sure, it’s easier against a pretty miserable team like the White Sox, but that doesn’t discount the achievement. It actually underscores it.

There’s even more reason to pound the zone. Lugo threw twice as many strikes as balls Sunday.

The habit has a way of becoming noticed.

Earlier this year, Witt developed a nickname for him: The Surgeon.

Lugo, as Witt explained it, has all the tools that he needs to dissect hitters.

We’ll see if the moniker sticks.

Whether it does or not, though, the reasoning behind it will. Bubic, who spent spring training rehabbing from last summer’s Tommy John surgery, had all the reason in the world to concentrate the vast, vast majority of his time on just trying to get healthy.

But Lugo caught his attention early.

“From the minute I saw him in spring training, it’s all business,” Bubic said. “The guy comes in, and he’s as prepared as anybody. To have all the different pitch types he does, I don’t think anybody in the game has as much variety and as much confidence in the mix as he does. That confidence comes from his preparation.

“That’s something we wish we all could do — but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea if we all started throwing eight, nine, 10 different types of pitches.”

If you walk through the Kansas City clubhouse, you’ll find these sorts of descriptions everywhere.

Fellow Royals starting pitcher Brady Singer describes it this way: “How he’s able to manipulate hitters in the strike zone, it’s unbelievable.”

Sure. It used to be.