Kansas City, Mo. — Matthew Boyd cannot throw a successful pitch unless he is 100 percent committed to throwing that pitch.
He knows that. It’s been his mantra forever. But, probably for a lot of reasons that made sense at the time and now seem senseless in hindsight, he threw a pitch in the third inning Tuesday night that he didn’t really want to throw.
It was a four-seam fastball on an 0-2 count to Adalberto Mondesi. Catcher James McCann wanted the pitch to be up and in — under Mondesi’s chin if possible, probably to set up an off-speed pitch down and away.