New skipper Martinez wants to get Nats over playoff hump
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Hump day had a more tangible meaning for the Washington Nationals.
New manager Dave Martinez had a trio of camels brought to spring training camp Wednesday, four-legged visual aids to help players launch a journey aimed at getting over the franchise’s playoff hump.
“I don’t know if it’s so much as embrace it, but just not worry about it because so much as been made about it,” first baseman Ryan Zimmerman said. “It’s fair for people to write about it, but making the playoffs every year, winning divisions every year to me is already over the hump. We used to lose 90 games every year. People forget that.”
The Nationals have reached the playoffs in four of the last six seasons but have not won a postseason series since relocating to Washington ahead of the 2005 season.
Martinez joined players for the team’s daily “Circle of Trust” meeting on the turf infield outside the clubhouse at 9:30 a.m. EST. Not long into the meeting, first-base coach Tim Bogar and third-base coach Bob Henley rode camels onto the field.
“I thought it was a great idea,” said Bogar, a former Astros infielder. “I thought it was something just to make sure they cleared their minds and they had fun with it. We embraced it. I thought the guys reacted to it real well. From what I could see, everybody was having a good time with it.”
Martinez spent 10 years as Joe Maddon’s bench coach with the Chicago Cubs and Tampa Bay Rays. Maddon is well known for his spring training stunts designed to keep players loose.
Deal with Royals makes Duda’s day
Lucas Duda’s arm was challenged by Eric Hosmer, who made a delayed dash home on a high throw to score the tying run in the ninth inning of what turned out to be the finale of the Kansas City Royals’ five-game win over the New York Mets in the 2015 World Series.
Now Duda is replacing Hosmer.
“It’s funny how baseball works out,” Duda said after agreeing to a $3.5 million, oneyear contract with the Royals that allows him to earn $1.3 million more in performance bonuses. “You definitely learn from failure. It makes you strong as a person, as a player. For the Kansas City fans out there that don’t think maybe I’m the right fit or whatever it may be, I’m out to prove them wrong.”
Royals manager Ned Yost said he will not mention the play to Duda.
“It’s not an elephant in the room,” Yost said. “It’s a onetime play. If we make the play again, he might have thrown Hos out by 10 feet. You don’t know. It’s just something that happened.”
Hosmer became a free agent and agreed to a $144 million, eight-year contract with San Diego. Before adding Duda, the Royals’ candidates included a trio of players with no first-base experience in the major leagues: Hunter Dozier, Frank Schwindel and Ryan O’Hearn.
“I was glad we could get Duda, because I felt a spot that was going to be a pretty big hole was first base,” Yost said. “We looked around, and I think we are pretty well-covered for the most part. It never hurts if something falls into your lap.”
Duda, 32, hit .217 with 30 homers and 64 RBIs last year for the Mets and Tampa Bay, which acquired him on July 27. He had 58 extra-base hits and a .496 slugging percentage.
Odds and ends
Closer Craig Kimbrel is away from the Red Sox’s spring training camp while his infant daughter has surgery in Boston. Kimbrel’s wife, Ashley, gave birth to the couple’s first child, Lydia Joy, in November. Lydia Joy was born with a heart ailment and had a first medical procedure when she was a few days old. …
Brewers catcher Stephen Vogt is expected to miss two to three weeks with a strained right shoulder.