On a hot evening at Kauffman Stadium in July, Jorge López was asked to accomplish a complicated task. The Royals were already 30 games under .500, which meant that neither López nor the KC Royals had much to lose.
It was the third inning, and Danny Duffy enjoyed a 2-1 lead when he was inadvertently hit on the hand by a line drive, and appeared to lose his sharpness as the Detroit Tigers capitalized and immediately scored two runs off the left-hander, and had runners on second and third with nobody out.
Pitching coach Cal Eldred paid a visit to the mound to check up on Duffy who insisted on being fine, until Ned Yost appeared from the bullpen to yank the starter against his wishes as he understandably didn’t want to take any chances with Duffy’s pitching hand, and based on the inning’s outlook, the Royals primed themselves for another digit under the loss column (Duffy went on to make his next start).