MLB teams
Jayson Stark, ESPN Senior Writer 8y

Yost: Morales not long-term option for Royals in right field

MLB, Kansas City Royals

He's the Kansas City Royals' hottest hitter. And on Friday night, he was starting in right field for the third straight game. But Royals manager Ned Yost said Friday that Kendrys Morales' days as a right fielder won't extend beyond this weekend, after his team completes a run of five games in a row in National League parks.

Even though the Royals just placed Lorenzo Cain on the disabled list this week, Yost said he thinks his team has enough options that, over the long haul, "we've got the outfield covered."

"You know, this team is built around pitching and defense," he said. "We've got Cain and [Alex] Gordon and [Paolo] Orlando and [Jarrod] Dyson. So we've got a pretty good defensive alignment out there. ... So we'll just keep Kendrys in his DH spot. But as long as he's got that bat and we've got these National League games -- five in a row right here -- we're going to put him out there."

Before Wednesday, when the Royals played the first of two games in St. Louis, Morales hadn't played the outfield since Sept. 27, 2008, before a freak ankle injury, at the end of a triumphant, game-winning home run trot in 2010, turned him into a full-time designated hitter. But after watching Morales run down five fly balls without issue in St. Louis, Yost said he planned to play his DH in right in all three games in Philadelphia this weekend.

"It kills you not to have his bat in there when we're playing these interleague games," Yost said. "I hate having him sit on the bench. ... With him being hot like he is now and with Cain being out, if you've got Cain's bat out of the lineup, to take Morales' bat out of the lineup too, it just doesn't make sense. That would be two pretty big bats that are missing."

Morales, 33, isn't just the Royals' hottest hitter at the moment, though. He's actually the hottest hitter in baseball. He entered Friday's game riding a streak of six straight multi-hit games, in which he has gone 16-for-24, with three homers, three doubles and an 1.833 OPS. He's also a candidate for the American League player of the month award, after a June in which he hit .402 (35-for-87), with five home runs, seven doubles, a .655 slugging percentage and 1.108 OPS. He went 6-for-8 in his two games as a right fielder in St. Louis, with two doubles and a homer.

Yost said the Royals talked about playing Morales in right in NL parks as far back as 2015. Even though they never actually did it, that idea has been in the back of the manager's head ever since. "You know, last year, going through the thought process ... he was having a tremendous year and I said, 'How do we get this guy in the game?'" Yost said.

"Then he was shagging during BP in Cleveland, and I was watching him out there, and man, he was making great catches and running good routes and looked good out there. So I really kept my eye on him for like two days."

Yost also knew that Morales used to be an outfielder in Cuba before he defected and signed with the Los Angeles Angels in 2005. So the manager has been deciding whether to play this card ever since, and this week, he got his chance to play it. But he's wary of putting too much physical stress on Morales over the long haul.

"As an outfielder, there's a toll," Yost said. "I mean, there's a lot of running around out there."

So come next week, Morales will be back in his familiar DH spot. But for the next couple of days, he'll be putting his glove to more use than it has seen in almost a decade.

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