Dayton Moore loves cliches, still doesn't get it - MLB

Royals pitchers and catchers reported to spring training this morning and general manager Dayton Moore had this to say about the team’s offseason moves:

I love the moves that we’ve made this offseason. We wanted to get more athletic, and we wanted more team speed. Guys who could play better defense. And for a little over $8 million, we’ve added Chris Getz, Josh Fields, Rick [Ankiel], Scott Podsednik, Jason Kendall, Noel Arguelles and Brian Anderson.

All of those guys are very athletic and defensive-oriented players. They’re baseball players in the sense that they come to play. They’re winners. They’ve got great reputations in the game of being competitors. We like the moves a great deal.

I’m certainly not going to fault a GM for saying that he likes his own offseason moves, but all that other stuff is mostly nonsense and similar to what we’ve heard from Moore each spring since he got the job in 2006.
– “We wanted to get more athletic, and we wanted more team speed.”
– “They’re baseball players in the sense that they come to play.”
– “They’re winners.”
– “They’ve got great reputations in the game of being competitors.”
Just to be clear, he’s talking about Jason Kendall, Scott Podsednik, Rick Ankiel, Chris Getz, Brian Anderson, and Josh Fields. Meanwhile, he seems not to care a whole lot about getting on base or hitting for power, and doesn’t seem to realize that all those cliches about supposed intangibles don’t really matter when the team is terrible.
Kansas City has averaged 99 losses per season since their last winning record in 2003, and I can assure you that not having enough speedy, athletic winners who come to play and are competitors hasn’t been the problem.

SEATTLE (AP) Aaron Judge homered for the third time in two games, Anthony Volpe and Greg Allen also went deep and the New York Yankees stretched their winning streak to four with a 10-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night.

Judge hit a towering fly ball on the first pitch of the seventh inning from reliever Darren McCaughan that carried just enough to clear the fence in left-center field, even if it would not have been a homer at Yankee Stadium.

It was the 18th of the season for Judge, who hit a pair of homers in the series opener on Monday night.

While Judge hitting another homer will get the headlines, it was Volpe’s long ball that broke open the game. With two outs in the third inning, Seattle starter Logan Gilbert caught too much of the plate with a 1-2 slider and Volpe drove the pitch 413 feet for a three-run shot and a 6-0 lead. It was Volpe’s eighth homer of the season and snapped a 2-for-22 slide for the rookie.

Allen, filling in for injured center fielder Harrison Bader, hit his first of the season leading off the fourth inning. Isiah Kiner-Falefa also had a key two-run single in the first inning as the Yankees took advantage of an error to give starter Nestor Cortes a 3-0 advantage before he took the mound.

Kiner-Falefa had another two-run single in the ninth. New York has scored at least 10 runs in three straight games for the first time since Sept. 15-17, 2020.

Cortes (5-2) mostly cruised through five innings, allowing two runs and five hits with six strikeouts. Ty France and Teoscar Hernández had RBI doubles in the fifth inning. Judge nearly stole another hit from Hernández after robbing him of a homer on Monday, but his diving attempt at Hernández’s liner fell for a double.

Gilbert (3-3) lasted just four innings for the second time this season. The five earned runs allowed were a season-high and the four strikeouts matched a season-low.

SEE YA LATER

Seattle catcher Tom Murphy and manager Scott Servais were both ejected by plate umpire Brian Walsh in the sixth inning. Murphy was ejected after yelling toward first base umpire C.B. Bucknor following a check-swing that was called a strike. Servais argued the decision to eject Murphy and was quickly tossed by Walsh. It was the second ejection this season for Servais.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Yankees: Bader (hamstring) was placed on the 10-day IL after leaving Monday’s game in the third inning injuring his right hamstring running out an infield single. OF Franchy Cordero was recalled.

Mariners: McCaughan was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma to add a long reliever to the bullpen. RHP Juan Then was optioned to Tacoma. It was Seattle’s first roster move in 24 days.

UP NEXT

Yankees: RHP Clarke Schmidt (2-5, 5.58) took the loss despite allowing only one earned run over five innings in his last start against Baltimore. Schmidt has gone at least five inning in five of his last seven starts.

Mariners: RHP George Kirby (5-4, 3.43) was knocked around for seven earned runs and four home runs allowed in his last start against Pittsburgh. Both matched career highs.

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