Regardless of what happens in this series.

REGARDLESS.

I no longer hate Ned Yost.

That a boy!

I had to accept that my manager (bochy) does shit during the regular season that make new want to destroy shit on a daily basis, but he gives me nothing to complain about when it matters.

Since the Wildcard game where he nearly killed me he's pulled all the right strings. Kudos to Ned.

If the Royals win this next one, at worst, Ned is 12-3 postseason w a title. That'll get HOF consideration even if he retired afterwards. This thread should be nuked. Ned rules!!

The man could still break hearts, for now his crazy is in remission. He seems to stay steady when we have series leads, no panic play. Here's to keeping leads...

Ned doesn't always do what Joe Fan would do. that's because your average message board denizen or sports radio caller would never bunt and just wait for home runs. He manages the team according to what they can do and what the game situation calls for. He's a throwback to a bygone era where you more often played for one run and you found ways to move runners over without having to get 3 or 4 straight hits to score a couple.

You don't get to the World Series by accident.

Two words..Ron Washington.

Something about being on the threshold of being murdered before you can reach the parking lot makes a dude re-evaluate things, and finally muster up the strength to wrench his head free from his ass.

These guys were down what, 7-3 in the bottom of the 8th with their ultimate nemesis, John Lester on the mound?

Its a miracle comeback that saved Yost's job and his life. No way he would have remained the manager had they lost. Too much at stake, emotions WAY too high, and honestly it was probably the dumbest thing any baseball fan in general saw all year to that point.

smile fellas! Its the Yost Season!!

Is this how you say "I told you so?"

Someone needs to start one of these threads, like yesterday, about Dorsey/Reid...

Just because Ned Yost didn't negatively impact the game as often as he did in the regular season does not mean he positively impacted the game an equal amount resulting in the win. That is a logical fallacy. It is significantly easier to negatively affect the outcome of a game than to positively affect the outcome.

All of that said, Ned Yost did a significantly better job of managing the pen, save for the Ventura fiasco, in the playoffs. Going to Kelvin for an 1 2/3 innings was a great move.

There are things about Ned Yost that drive me nuts. There are things about him that make me think he's a below-average manager tactically.

But damn, he certainly has shown he can make his team believe and come together in a way that maybe overcomes some of those tactical shortcomings.

And I'll give him major credit for this... unlike a lot of managers, he has shown in this postseason that he will only make a mistake 1 time.

The way he handled the bullpen in the wildcard game nearly cost the team everything. And he learned from those mistakes and completely reversed some of his strategies.

Good point. My point is that I think the Ventura deal in the WC game did something. It's like we were hitting on 7 cylinders, hit a bump that moved the plug wire back in place and now were hitting on all 8. That's a good thing, and we're winning because of good moves at the right time (Ned's job), good pitching, ****ing crazy-awesome defense behind that pitching, and hitting that working as well as it has all year. Oh, and speed that kills!

So I'm very OK with the new Ned, but I'll also be quick to remind him of how messing around with a great recipe is not advisable (if he does).

We have four games to go, FOUR... Ride the players like they're about to get a long break, know that some will be ripe for other teams to try to steal (in some way), and live for the moment. Lord knows with Ebola there might not be a next year, so he needs to be all-in for each win, but only "not stupid with a players health" when it might affect the winning of the game, not the career.

He's got to ride the line of "controlled reckless abandon" - and THAT'S why he's a millionaire, because he's supposed to know where that line is. If a pitcher in game 55 is only good for 6 inning and/or 90 pitches, he may need to consider 115 pitches if there's no loss of movement or velocity (depending on the pitcher's poison is) in the kid's throws.

IOW, it's time to play with a bloody and bleeding ankle as long as doing so doesn't mean the next player in line wouldn't have been more capable of doing the job.