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Pedro Martinez rips Ned Yost after Royals' wild-card win

Mike Oz

Ned Yost escaped with his job still intact Tuesday night, after his Kansas City Royals came back three times to beat the Oakland Athletics 9-8 in 12 innings in the AL wild-card game.

For a while, it didn't look like Yost would be so lucky. He took out starting pitcher James Shields in the sixth inning, handing the ball to rookie flame-thrower Yordano Ventura to make his first career postseason appearance against A's slugger Brandon Moss, who had launched a two-run homer earlier in the game.

Taking out Shields was a questionable move to begin with, since he had only thrown 88 pitches. But bringing in Ventura, a starter who threw 73 pitches Sunday, was befuddling. The Royals had plenty of relievers Yost could call on, even other starters probably better suited for the moment.

(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

When Moss came up and launched a three-run homer off Ventura, giving the A's a 5-3 lead, the Yost haters exploded. Many people weren't just wondering if the Royals were done for, they were also wondering if Yost was going to get canned. Critics have long been rough on Yost for his in-game management. The Royals' great comeback will earn Yost something of a reprieve from fans. Can't curse the manger who's taking you to the ALDS too much.

But TBS analyst/pitching great Pedro Martinez wasn't letting Yost off the hook. On both the TBS postgame show and on his Twitter account, Martinez let the criticism fly like one of his four-seamers.

On the postgame show, Martinez heard Yost explain himself and retorted:

"Anything you say that wasn't 'I screwed up and I almost threw the game away' will sound bad, and that's horrible. What he's saying right there is horrible."

He also defended Ventura, who like Pedro, is from the Dominican Republic:

"The kid pitched the other day and had, I think, 72 pitches. There's no need to bring another starter in this situation. You have [Brandon] Finnegan in there. You can bring the lefty. You have [Danny] Duffy. You can use anybody against Moss ... I think this is another panic move from Ned Yost. He almost gave the game away. If Kansas City ends up losing that game, Ned Yost would have been the ugly goat heading out of Kansas City today."

Here's the Twitter version of Pedro's anti-Yost rant:

Consider this a new chapter in a lesson a lot of hitters learned — it's never a good idea to cross Pedro Martinez.

BLS H/N: Deadspin

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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!