TORONTO -- On paper, the Blue Jays are a bad matchup for Royals right-hander Chris Young. Young does not throw hard -- PitchFX says he averaged 87.9 mph with his heater Tuesday -- and he's an extreme fly ball pitcher. That doesn't seem like the kind of guy you want to throw against baseball's top offense.
Young is no ordinary pitcher though. He's 6-foot-10 and that mid-80s fastball plays up because of the extension and deception in his delivery. Hitters react like he's throwing mid-90s. It's pretty fascinating to watch. That recipe has allowed Young to post a 3.40 ERA (113 ERA+) the last two years, including a 3.06 ERA (135 ERA+) in 123 1/3 innings in 2015.
And yet, despite that success and the deception, Yost pulled Young from Game 4 Tuesday with two outs in the fifth and his pitch count at a modest 78. Young had retired seven of the last eight batters he faced as well. He was pitching well, and if this was the regular season, I'm sure Yost would have stuck with his starter a little longer.
"It's not about personal stuff. It's about winning games collectively," said Young after Game 4 when asked about falling one out shy of qualiying for the win. "Wins for a pitcher are a somewhat ridiculous stat. Have been for a long time."
This isn't the regular season though. Even with a two games to one lead in the ALCS, Yost didn't want to push his luck with Young, and instead opted to go to his killer bullpen. After all, opposing batters hit .184/.225/.329 against Young the first time through the lineup and .234/.307/.435 thereafter during the regular season. Big difference!
"Chris Young threw the ball great. We got there in the fifth inning, and my mindset was with Donaldson, Bautista, those guys, I really didn't want them seeing Chris for the third time," said Yost. "But to get us into the fifth inning right there with the lead, he just pitched a great game. He had the one at-bat against Donaldson where he hit the double off of him. Outside of that I thought he pitched great."
Young's night ended after Ben Revere slapped a little seeing-eye ground ball single with two outs. That meant likely AL MVP Josh Donaldson was coming to bat for the third time in the game. In his second at-bat against Young, he did this:
A 105 mph line drive (per Statcast) will get your attention. Donaldson also smoked a line drive just foul on the previous pitch. He squared Young up pretty well. So yeah, Yost didn't want any part of Young facing Donaldson for the third time. He pulled his starter and went to reliever Luke Hochevar, who got Donaldson to pop-up in foul territory to end the inning, stranding the runner and maintaining Kansas City's 5-2 lead.
"CY pitched great and you want to keep it right there for him and for the club," said Hochevar after Game 4. "That (out is) big. He's a really, really good hitter. To get him to (pop-up to) first base, that's big, especially the way CY pitched all game. You want to keep it right there for him."
Given the outcome of the game -- a lopsided 14-2 Royals win (box score) -- it's easy to forget a small move like this. A move that might not even have mattered. Yes, the Royals broke it open late, but Yost put his team in the best possible position in that fifth inning by pulling his starter and going to the bullpen. Hochevar, not Young, was best equipped to face Donaldson in that spot.
"My thought process is, I'm going out there trying to make quality pitches," said Hochevar when asked about the Donaldson at-bat. "It's a double-edged sword there. You fall behind, make a mistake, you don't just give in. You really have to execute good pitches to get those guys out."
Later in the game, after the offense blew things open with four run in the seventh and three more in the eighth, Yost went for the kill by using ace setup man Kelvin Herrera against the top of the Blue Jays' lineup. If Toronto was going to come back, it was going to start with that portion of the lineup, and Yost didn't mess around.
Could a lesser reliever, say Franklin Morales, have protected a 10-run lead in the eighth? Oh sure, almost certainly. This is the postseason though. Why even give the Blue Jays the tiniest of opportunities? Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons did the Royals a favor by using LaTroy Hawkins and Ryan Tepera in the seventh and innings, why return the favor?
The Royals won Game 4 and took a three games to one lead in the ALCS because their offense punished almost everyone the Blue Jays ran out there, first and foremost. (Everyone except Liam Hendriks, basically.) Yost's quick move to the bullpen should not be overlooked though. Donaldson was on Young, and if Yost sticks with his starter too long in that fifth inning, the outlook of the game could have changed dramatically.
There is no such thing as a quick hook in the postseason. Not when you have the Royals bullpen. With his fourth starter on the mound and the Blue Jays at least threatening to come back, Yost went to his big relief arms and squashed any potential comeback. It was a smart decision in a critical spot of the Game 4 victory.
"I could care less about personal wins. It's a team game. It always has been, it always will be," added Young. "For me, the only thing I care about is the team winning today, and we did."
