Making official what was expected, manager Ned Yost announced the Royals’ rotation for the World Series.
Game 1: James Shields
Game 2: Yordano Ventura
Game 3: Jeremy Guthrie
Game 4: Jason Vargas
That’s the same alignment the Royals used in the ALCS, when they swept the Orioles in four games.
Royals starters have a 3.80 ERA this postseason, but Shields has allowed 10 runs in three starts compared to the other three pitchers allowing a combined nine runs in five starts.
The Astros’ sign-stealing story broke in November, a steady drumbeat of coverage of it lasted through December and into January, when Rob Manfred’s report came out about it. The report was damning and, in its wake, Houston’s manager and general manger were both suspended and then fired.
After that a steady stream of media reports came out which not only made the whole affair seem even worse than Manfred’s report suggested, but which also suggested that, on some level, Major League Baseball had bungled it all and it was even worse than it had first seemed.
Rather than Manfred and the Astros putting this all behind them, the story grew. As it grew, both the Red Sox and Mets fired their managers and, in a few isolated media appearances, Astros’ players seemed ill-prepared for questions on it all. Once spring training began the Astros made even worse public appearances and, for the past week and change, each day has given us a new player or three angrily speaking out about how mad they are at the Astros and how poorly they’ve handled all of this.
Why have they handled it so poorly? As always, look to poor leadership:
One MLB executive says he “not shocked” at how poorly #Astros have handled current crisis. Jim Crane was warned about coming storm, urged to gather his players to prepare for industry reaction, media questions. Crane passed on the idea. Said, “it’ll blow over by spring training."
— Bob Klapisch (@BobKlap) February 20, 2020
Guess not.
In other news, Crane was — and I am not making this up — recently named the Houston Sports Executive of the Year. An award he has totally, totally earned, right?
Congratulations to Jim Crane, owner of the @astros on receiving the 2020 Executive of the Year award presented by @MercedesBenz #houstonsportsawards #wearehoustonsports pic.twitter.com/4rEBxgGO2z
— Houston Sports Awards (@HOUsportsAwards) January 22, 2020