YORDANO VENTURA
1991-2017
ROYALS PITCHER KILLED IN CAR CRASH
Yordano Ventura, the hard-throwing Royals pitcher who earned attention for both October heroics and a fiery contentiousness on the mound, died Sunday morning in a car accident in his native Dominican Republic, at age 25.
“I’m still waiting to wake up from a bad dream,” Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland said in a telephone interview.
“There’s no other way to say it than it sucks,” Royals catcher Drew Butera said in a telephone interview.
In a horrible coincidence, former Braves, Indians and Diamondbacks infielder Andy Marte also died Sunday morning in the Dominican in a separate car accident. Marte was 33.
Ventura completed the 2016 season, his third full major league campaign, with a 4.45 ERA in 186 innings pitched, his worst showing, but given his age and his talent, there appeared little reason for long-term concern.
“He was starting to turn the corner,” Eiland said.
At the outset of the 2015 season, Ventura had signed a five-year, $23 million extension through 2019, with team options for 2020 and 2021.
That commitment came in the wake of Ventura’s memorable contributions to the Royals’ 2014 postseason run. Ironically, Ventura’s most famous game as a big leaguer occurred in the context of yet another car accident in the Dominican. Cardinals outfielder Oscar Taveras died in the middle of the 2014 World Series between the Royals and Giants, and the Giants won Game 5 at AT&T Park to take a 3-2 lead as the series returned to Kansas City. The Royals looked to their Game 6 starter Ventura, a longtime friend of Taveras, to keep their season afloat.
“I remember on the plane back from San Francisco, we were flying all night,” Eiland said. “The plane was crowded with families, and I was in first class. I sat [Ventura] next to me and said, ‘Sit here, get some rest.’
“He said to me, ‘Don’t you worry. I’m gonna show you who the real ace of this team is.’ Then he went to sleep.”
With “RIP O.T. #18” written on his Royals cap, Ventura threw seven shutout innings to defeat the Giants 10-0 and send the series to Game 7, which the Royals lost. Ventura then won three of his postseason starts in 2015 to help the Royals win it all, although he did lose World Series Game 3 to Noah Syndergaard and the Mets 9-3 in the first Fall Classic contest at Citi Field.
He gained more infamy than fame in what now will go down as his last season. He served an eight-game suspension for throwing at Baltimore All-Star Manny Machado, the last in a multiseason string of confrontations with opponents that clearly exasperated his fellow players and superiors.
On Sunday, though, Eiland and Butera exonerated their fallen teammate.
“This was a really good kid with a really, really good heart,” Eiland said. “For people who just saw the clips [of brawls] on TV, that was his competitive nature. He was a fighter. He had to fight his whole life for everything he ever got. Sometimes his competitive fire got the best of him. It was all done with good intentions.”
Butera added: “I think that had to do with him showing passion, not only for his team but also his teammates. Any true baseball fan knows you protect your teammates who you think have been treated unfairly. He was our ace of the staff at the time. He wanted to have our backs. He was a fierce competitor, and he never backed down from anybody.”
The Kansas City Star reported Ventura’s funeral will be Tuesday in the Dominican.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, addressing the untimely passings of both Ventura and Marte, said in a statement, “Today is a very sad day for our entire game and particularly for the many loyal fans in the Dominican Republic.”
Players Association executive director Tony Clark said in a statement: “It’s never easy to lose a member of our fraternity, and there are no words to describe the feeling of losing two young men in the prime of their lives.”
It has been a rough stretch for baseball, which saw All-Star Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez die last September in a boating accident at age 24.