Former New York Yankees’ Dave Eiland joins Kansas City Royals as pitching coach – MLB News
The New York Yankees’ former pitching coach Dave Eiland has joined the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday, after the Royals’ manager Ned Yost expressed his interest to sign a coach for the long term.
The spot was free after Bob McClure left the club after serving for five valuable years. Eiland was added to club with many expectations as McClure had been supervising one of the brilliant starting rotations in the Majors. Eiland’s task will be to handle
the young starting rotation that has remarkable talent but lack in experience.
This lack of experience could not make the young players meet expectations, as the Royals received some unexpected defeats. When the Royals finished their 2011 season with 71-91, they were 24 games behind the Detroit Tigers, the American League Central leaders.
“This is a team that’s going to make some noise as we move forward,” said Eiland, “We feel like if we all do our part, this is a team that can contend within the next year or two.”
Eiland was a part of the Yankees organisation for most of his career. First, he joined the club as a player and after retirement had taken over the responsibility of becoming the pitching coach. In his early days as a coach, he served in the Minor Leagues
and helped the young pitchers to develop their techniques.
Dave joined the staff of Joe Girardi in 2008 and helped the club to win their 27th World Series title the following year. In 2009, the Yankees’ pitchers struck-out the second most batters in franchise history and experts connected this performance
with Eiland, who was the assistant for Girardi.
“You have to teach guys how to pitch into the seventh, eighth and ninth inning, and how to finish games, and that’s what we want to do out there,” Eiland said Tuesday.
Eiland started his Major League Baseball career in 1988, also with the New York Yankees. Later, he joined the Tampa Bay Rays and San Diego Padres, but his affiliation with the Yankees was still present. He posted a 12-27 record with a 5.74 ERA in 92 games
over his 10 year career.
Dave spent his last year as special agent to the Tampa Bay Rays’ General Manager Andrew Friedman. Rays pitching expressed some brilliant performances in the month of September and the club entered into the American League Division Series. According to experts,
Eiland will be a valuable asset for the Royals, if used for the long term.
It will be interesting to see what impact Eiland will have on the Royals’ pitching performance for the next regular season.
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