Royals’ batting order 'falls into place,' and Ned Yost likes it

The Royals batting order is about set, Royals manager Ned Yost said last weekend.

When asked if he’d given a lot of thought to his batting order, Yost said, “Not really, it really falls into place.”

He proceeded to run it down:

1. RF Norichika Aoki

2. 2B Omar Infante

3. 1B Eric Hosmer

4. DH Billy Butler

5. LF Alex Gordon

6. C Salvador Perez

7. 3B Mike Moustakas

8. CF Lorenzo Cain

9. SS Alcides Escobar

“You’ve got a nice left-right sequence in there,” Yost said. “You’ve got the guys you want in the back end with Billy, Gordy and Sal as big-time run-producers. You’ve got your table-setters. And Hoz can be a run-producer too because of Aoki’s and Infante’s ability to get on base.

“I don’t think you need to tinker with it too much.”

Yost said he likes the lineup’s potential from top to bottom.

“You’re not going to have any dead spots,” Yost said. “You’re not going to get something going, then bam! You run into a wall and have to get it going again. At least I hope not.”

With the batting order and four of the five pitchers in the starting rotation all but set — James Shields, Jason Vargas, Jeremy Guthrie and Bruce Chen — the Royals will head to Surprise, Ariz., with many answers.

“It’s not like past years,” Yost said. “We saw this in Atlanta and in Milwaukee. You come in your first year and there are seven spots open for contention. Come back the next year and there’s five. Then you get to a point when you’re pretty darn good and there’s none.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2014 at 1:28 PM with the headline "Royals’ batting order 'falls into place,' and Ned Yost likes it."