KANSAS CITY, MO (July 11, 2019) — The Kansas City Royals today selected the contract of Bubba Starling from its Omaha (AAA) affiliate and placed him on the active 25-man roster.  The ball club will make a corresponding 40-man roster move prior to Friday night’s 7:15 p.m. game against the Detroit Tigers.

Starling, 26, is enjoying his best overall minor league season, hitting .310 (81-for-261) in 72 games for Omaha, with 11 doubles, two triples, seven home runs and 38 RBI, his first full season at the AAA level. He has an on-base pct. of .358 and a slugging pct. of .448 for an OPS of .806. He has also swiped nine bases in 12 attempts.

Bubba earned a spot in the Triple-A All-Star Game, where he went 0-for-2 with a run scored last night as the Pacific Coast League squad defeated a team from the International League, 9-3 in El Paso, TX.

He has batted at a .355 clip (11-for-31) in his last eight games with the Storm Chasers, a stretch that included five straight two-hit games. Starling also had a 10-game hitting streak in early June in which he batted .436 (17-for-39)

A native of nearby Gardner, KS, Starling was a three-sport letterman at Gardner-Edgerton High School before being drafted by the Royals in the first round of the 2011 draft (fifth overall). As a senior, he was a First Team Rawlings Preseason All-America and batted .481 in his final high school season.