Ned Yost media session: August 16

Tonight’s game will wrap up the series against the Oakland Athletics. Ned Yost met with the media to discuss the lineup changes. Alex Gordon will be hitting in the three spot with Jarrod Dyson taking the lead off position.  “You look at our lineup and project our lineup in the future, I mean it’s very foreseeable that Alex is going to be a guy that will be a run producer, a three-four-five type hitter in our lineup. We have been struggling a little bit in the three spot, trying to get that to settle down a little and we haven’t been able to. We just felt the time was right to go ahead and put Alex in that spot and ride it out probably for the remainder of the year.  We feel more comfortable with Dyson now and (Chris) Getz as leadoff opportunities and (Lorenzo) Cain could actually leadoff too to take over that spot,” said Yost. He then followed with “ We are going to have, down the road I mean, our offense is going to be very potent, packed with guys that are all going to be three-four-five-six hitters. Dyson is more of a prototypical leadoff type hitter, but being a leadoff hitter it is real important your on-base percentage (is high), but Dyson has done a great job on taking more walks and utilizing his speed and is swinging the bat real well right now,” said Yost.

A while back ago when the media met with Yost, he mentioned that Luke Hochevar needed to focus more on his core pitches. Yost said, “That has gone ok, but it kind of lapses back a little bit but then he realizes it and gets back on track. It has been a work in progress, but we are seeing positive signs in Luke and we hope it continues tonight.” He followed with “He (Luke) will get cutter happy and slider happy at times. But Luke is a guy that thoroughly studies the opposition. He sits there in between his starts and really focuses, and it’s not an hour or two, and he works on formulating a game plan with Dave (Eiland) and which pitches he can be effective with to win that game. But sometimes stepping back and focusing on three core pitches and then mixing in the other pitches when you need (them) could be more beneficial then mastering six pitches .”