Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost can’t make up his mind, and it’s making him look a bit hypocritical.
The Kansas City manager made news last week when he publicly called out Royals fans for poor attendance. On the same night Alex Gordon hit a potentially season-altering walk-off home run, Yost wondered aloud how the Royals could only draw about 13,000 fans in a playoff push.
“We’re in a pennant race, yeah,” he added. “We’ve been working on trying to build this team for the last three or four years to put ourselves in a position where we can contend for a championship. And not only the division, but we want to contend for a world championship. It’s really, really important we have our fans behind us at the stadium.”
Well, fast-forward about a week. The Royals averaged more than 35,000 fans per game during a weekend series with the Cleveland Indians. Unfortunately for the home crowd, Kansas City lost two of those games and a third was suspended because of rain with the Royals trailing 4-2 in the 10th inning.
Shortly after calling on fans to show better attendance, Yost hypothesized this weekend that the big crowds may be hurting the team.
“The crowds have been fantastic,” Yost said, according to the Kansas City Star. “I think it’s got them juiced up. They want to really perform for them. And that never works. You’ve got to stay disciplined.”
Yost apparently isn’t very easy to please.
The two sides may have found a solution on Monday night, though. In front of a “Goldilocks crowd” — not too many, not too few — of 21,536, the Royals beat the Rangers 4-3.
