Kansas City Royals’ manager Ted Yost was interviewed in Detroit this weekend during his team’s series with the Tigers. Yost said that he doesn’t worry about how long a player has been in the major leagues when he decides which one to put on the mound.
“I think if you’re a big-leaguer, you’re a big-leaguer, and I don’t try to protect guys in the big leagues,” Yost said. “I throw them right into the fire and let them go. They’re big-league players. They’ve earned their way here.”
Apparently Yost doesn’t try to protect any of his players – young, old, or struggling in colossal fashion.
Monday night, the Royals were at home to face the Cleveland Indians. It seemed as though the only thing the Royals did right was to get their uniforms on properly. Cleveland trounced them 19-1.
The issue here is not the loss but the historic significance in the way it went down. Relief pitcher Vin Mazzaro gave up 14 runs in a three-inning stretch, including 10 runs in the fourth. It will go down as the worst pitching performance in Royals’ history and one of the worst ever.
This game has been shown repeated on Sportscenter and other similar shows through the night and day today and understandably so. What I don’t understand is how this situation came about.
Was Yost not watching this game? How can a manager let one of his team collapse in such grand fashion?
Seriously?! Mazzaro gave up 10 runs in the fourth and Yost dragged him back out on the mound to be whipped more. It’s clear that Yost isn’t trying to protect his players, any of them.
Mazzaro will go down in history for the bad performance on display Monday night. But a portion of the blame/credit definitely should go to Ted Yost for not knowing when to get a struggling member of HIS team out of the game in a timely and reasonable manner.
