Oct. 26: Ned Yost pregame interview

Q. Can you talk about the difficulties facing a pitcher like Bumgarner and not just with the stuff he has, but when he is in the zone, like he's been in the postseason?

NED YOST: He's been really, really good. You know, he's been really, really good. He's a dynamic competitor. He's got great stuff. He comes right at you. I mean, he's not going to try to trick you. He's going to challenge you with his great stuff. Got a great defense behind him, which makes him even that much better.

So it's a tough challenge, but the beauty of this game is you never know what you're going to get from day to day. We're going to go out and try to put the best at‑bats we can, and score some runs.

Q. A couple times during the series it's been really striking when you've come in here after your losses of how much joy you were drawing out of the game even though you lost. After Game 1 you were very complimentary of Bumgarner. Last night you were complimenting Sandoval. Tell me where you think that comes from.

NED YOST: Well, you know what, I've just been having a blast. We're in the World Series. My team is confident. My team is loose. That gives me confidence. You know, it's an exciting time, I think, for us. It's an exciting time for Kansas City.

You know, when this started, not so much ‑‑ I really tried to get myself in the mindset that I was going to have fun, and it was a little more difficult to have fun against the Angels, as tough as they were, you know. Then that series went three, and then Baltimore. But I just made an effort that I'm going to slow down, and I'm going to enjoy this to the max.

You know, all of my boys in that locker room have a deep feeling in their heart that they're going to win the World Series, and if you have that feeling, a loss doesn't matter. If you believe you're going to win, one loss, two losses doesn't matter. It's a seven‑game series; you've got to win four. So you just go out, play your hearts out, and whatever happens happens. All the ingredients are there for it to be successful. Again, my team's loose, they're confident. It's just which team goes out and performs better is going to be the winner.

But I've just been having fun. It's fun. Even going through that game last night, it was still fun knowing that it was Game 4 of the World Series and we were tied 2‑2. It makes it interesting. It's what you live for, man. I've been waiting my whole life for this, and I'm not going to sit back and be uptight and not enjoy every second of it.

Q. Baseball is always kind of a follow‑the‑leader type of game. Do you feel like everybody's kind of gotten maybe just a tad trigger happy with their starters in taking them out in this postseason?

NED YOST: I don't know about that. I think if you watched postseason baseball, at least I have for the last five or six years, it's always apparent that you have a much shorter leash with your starting pitching. I mean, I've watched every playoff game, for the most part, and every World Series game for the last four or five years. You know, I've seen how managers have a bit of a shorter leash, especially when you have a really, really good bullpen, and we have a really, really good bullpen.

Q. Lorenzo never left the game, but it seemed like he was uncomfortable for a little while on the bases. What exactly was he dealing with when that was going on?

NED YOST: Nothing that I know of. Yeah. You'll have to ask him. I didn't see him uncomfortable in any stretch of the imagination. Nobody said he was uncomfortable. He looked fine to me.

Q. Just a follow‑up to Buster's question: You said when this thing started, and I think you meant the postseason, you were trying to have fun. Was that kind of a different mindset? Did something lift after the regular season when you got in here to sort of allow that to happen?

NED YOST: No, I just think something lifted after the Wild Card game. My goal for the last five years, six years was to get this team into a playoff situation. When that happened, I wanted to really try to enjoy it to the best of my ability. I knew that the Angels were going to be tough, all right? And then we ended up winning a squeaker in Game 1, squeaker in Game 2, and came out and won pretty good in Game 3, and it was like, whoa, we're going somewhere. That's when it started.

Still, even more tense, even in Atlanta all those years when we would go to the playoffs, it's more tense getting to the World Series. But once you get to the World Series, there are no more levels to climb. You just compete and try to win that world championship.

Being my seventh time, the first three or four times it went by like that (snaps fingers). I mean, you didn't even get to enjoy it. This time I was going to make a real effort to enjoy it.

Q. For relief pitchers, especially young ones, is the adjustment to going two, three, four days in a row more physical or mental, do you think?

NED YOST: It's probably more physical. Our guys know their bodies pretty well. They're all mentally ready every single day to go pitch. But there's only so many pitches or so much of a beating that arm can take on consecutive days. But our guys bounce back. That is another reason why our bullpen is so good is our guys bounce back really well. They can go three days in a row and then get one day off and come back, "Hey, I'm ready to go again."

So it's a good group.

Q. You changed your lineup just a bit today. Why was that? Also, what are your workout plans for tomorrow?

NED YOST: We're going to work out tomorrow, and we're going to have an optional workout. We're not going to get into Kansas City until early in the morning. So we'll have an optional workout at 4:30 tomorrow, from 4:30 to about 5:30, quarter to 6:00.

All we did was we were trying to split up with Bumgarner left‑handed going today, split up our two lefties, Moose and Hoz. We moved Moose up down one spot and moved Salvy up two spots, because he had pretty good at‑bats against Bumgarner last time.

Q. What's got to be different for Shields in Game 5 that he didn't do in Game 1, in your mind?

NED YOST: He needs to command his pitches a little better. He was fighting his secondary stuff last time. What makes him really, really effective is his changeup. When he's struggling to command his changeup, he tends to run into some problems.

So command of his fastball, command of his cutter, and command of his changeup are going to be key for us tonight.

Q. When you have what you have late in the bullpen, what does it feel like when the game doesn't dictate you can use it, like last night?

NED YOST: Yesterday we were one strike away, I felt like. We had put ourselves in a position to get out of that inning and get to exactly where I wanted to be, the 7th inning tied. Two outs with Sandoval up. We had Sandoval turned around. I mean, he just did a great job of hitting the pitch back up the middle. You've got to kind of take your hat off to him there. But we were just one hitter away from getting there.

It's a little bit more challenging if your starter can't get you through the 5th, because now all of a sudden you've got to piece the 5th and the 6th. We've had a lot of success when our starter goes five and we can piece the 6th together and get us to the 7th inning. But trying to piece six outs, like we had to do yesterday, sometimes gets a little bit difficult, and we saw what happened.

Q. You talked about enjoying the moment. Is there anything that you've saved? Any memorabilia? Anybody you've met that you've talked to or might have gone out of your way to meet or is it just in your mind?

NED YOST: No, it's just the whole experience. It's just the experience, I think. Not as much for myself, personally, but just watching the players enjoy this and watching them kind of revel in the attention and enjoy playing in the World Series. I mean, that's a tremendous joy for me to sit back and watch, and watch them play. Last night we were down, whatever the score was, and our players were still on the top rail, rooting hard and pushing in the 8th and the 9th inning. Not giving up.

But no, I haven't kept a thing. I haven't even gotten a World Series ball. I've kept the cork from one of the champagne bottles is the only thing I've kept until this point, but it's been fun. A lot of fun.

Q. When this is all over, do you think you're going to go back and rewatch the games? If you do, for enjoyment or for analysis?

NED YOST: I'm going to go back and lock the gate to my farm, and I'm going to try to find me a deer that I can have some fun with over there with my bow and arrow (laughter).

No, I won't go back and watch it. I think we've done a pretty good job getting us here to this point. There is nothing that I'm going to sit back and really say, man, I wish I could have done different, you know? About the only thing was probably the Ventura thing in the Wild Card game. But I still think that if all of you guys were sitting in my office at that point and you guys were managing that game, and you had a kid that throws 100 miles an hour with a slider, y'all might have done the same thing.

But it really helped me, I think, get better from that point on, because it really opened my mind about using Herrera more in the 6th inning to get us out of some of those situations. That was the one thing, I think, that happened that really helped me get better as manager, realize, hey, this is what we've got to do better. This is how we can protect ourselves better.

But besides that, no. I've been pleased with the way everything has gone so far.