About 3 1/2 hours before the first game of a new baseball season, Ned Yost sat in his office inside Target Field and couldn’t help but divulge his most pressing question.
It’s easy, in the shadow of a disappointing 2016 season, to wonder about an offense that ranked 13th in the league in runs scored or a starting rotation rocked by tragedy in the offseason. But Yost, the Royals’ headstrong manager, is an optimist by nature, a believer in players and process and track records. So as another year beckoned, he had little worry about his veteran staff or the core that brought a championship to Kansas City 17 months ago.