By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Kansas City Royals have been trimming down their camp roster over the past weeks, and some of the more notable moves came on Sunday and Monday as pitchers Noah Cameron (The Royals #5 prospect), Luinder Avila (#19), and Eric Cerantola (#28) were all optioned to Triple A Omaha and assigned to minor league camp.
Along with those three pitchers, who had all been added to the 40-man roster this past offseason, the Royals optioned outfielder Tyler Gentry (#25) to Triple-A, and he will also head to Minor League camp.
In his first big league camp, Cameron wasted no time showing why the Royals protected him from the Rule 5 draft last offseason. The pitcher from St. Joseph allowed four earned runs across 10 inning with one walk and seven strikeouts in four Cactus League appearances, with one start. He also recorded one save. He’ll now head to Triple-A at the beginning of the season trying to build on the 2.32 ERA he posted there in nine starts at the end of last season.
Manager Matt Quatraro was impressed with Cameron, and it's become a matter of when, not if, he gets to Kansas City to make his major league debut.
“He was really impressive, first and foremost,” manager Matt Quatraro tells reporters. “His poise, delivery, stuff, command, all those things were outstanding. He could not have had a better camp. Fortunately for us right now, with pitchers being healthy and guys that are established big leaguers, he’s going to have to wait his turn, so to speak.
“But we’re really excited about what we saw. And you know how this goes. It could be a moment’s notice that we need him and need him to help us win.”
Cameron was solid in three innings Sunday, his first Cactus League start, allowing one unearned run with two strikeouts. He’s always been a strike-thrower in his Minor League career, and that didn’t waver when he got on the mound in front of big league coaches.
“It’s definitely helped, for sure,” Cameron said Sunday. “Just being around everybody and having the locker room atmosphere. Whenever [my debut] comes, just having relationships with these guys takes all the stress off of you a little bit. Just having confidence in me, knowing that whenever I do go up or whatever that looks like, knowing that I deserve to be there and can help the team win.”
-MLB.com's Anne Rogers contributed to this report
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.