ROYALS
Ventura to start opener
SURPRISE, Ariz. — Ned Yost only needed to see one season from Yordano Ventura to determine his readiness for the spotlight. As a rookie, Ventura lit up radar guns, earned praise from Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez and started two World Series games.
He can add a new line to his resume: He will start on Opening Day for the Royals on April 6 at Kauffman Stadium. Yost made the announcement on Wednesday afternoon before Kansas City hosted the Chicago White Sox. When these clubs meet again in 12 days, Ventura, a former Northwest Arkansas Natural, will duel with Chicago right-hander Jeff Samardzija to start the season.
Yost also set the rest of his rotation. Danny Duffy will follow Ventura. Then the veterans arrive: Edinson Volquez, Jason Vargas and Jeremy Guthrie. This alignment prevents the team’s two lefthanders, Duffy and Vargas, from pitching on back-to-back days. Yost likes to avoid this scenario.
The coronation of Ventura is far from surprising. He joins a lineage of opening day starters that includes Bret Saberhagen, Kevin Appier, Paul Splittorff, Zack Greinke and James Shields. Shields is now in San Diego.
In Shields’ absence, the club expects both Ventura and Duffy to provide 200 innings in 2015 for the first time in their respective careers. Ventura made 30 starts and lasted 183 innings in 2014 with a 14-10 record and a 3.20 ERA. He posted an identical ERA in 25 1/3 postseason frames.
Ventura assuaged some of the fears about his health by avoiding the disabled list last season. But he still experienced a trio of minor blips. He missed a start in May due to a valgus extension overload in his right elbow. He skipped another outing in late August due to back stiffness. And he experienced tightness in his right shoulder during game two of the American League Championship Series.
METS
Surgery for Wheeler
TAMPA, Fla. — New York Mets pitcher Zack Wheeler has had elbow ligament replacement surgery, which likely will sideline him until late next spring.
The Mets said team medical director Dr. David Altchek operated in New York on Wednesday to reconstruct the righthander’s ulnar collateral ligament and repair the flexor pronator tendon.
Wheeler, 24, was 11-11 with a 3.54 ERA and 187 strikeouts last year, when he threw a career-high 185 1/3 innings.
MARLINS
Cosart under investigation
MIAMI — Miami Marlins pitcher Jarred Cosart is being investigated by Major League Baseball for online comments he may have made about gambling.
Marlins spokesman Matt Roebuck confirmed the investigation in a statement Wednesday but declined further comment.
Cosart, 24, deleted his Twitter account Tuesday after screen shots of comments he purportedly made to a gambling expert were published on the social media site.
It is an MLB rules violation for players or any other employees to bet on baseball games. A player who bets on a game his team isn’t playing in faces a mandatory one-year suspension. A player who bets on or against his own team faces a lifetime ban. The commissioner, at his discretion, can discipline a player for placing other types of bets with an illegal bookmaker.
YANKEES
Pirela fine
TAMPA, Fla. — Two days after crashing into an outfield wall and being taken to a hospital, Jose Pirela sat in the dugout in shorts and a T-shirt as the New York Yankees worked out before their game against the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night.
Manager Joe Girardi said Pirela had sustained a concussion, but Pirela said his head felt fine. The dizziness he had experienced Sunday was gone.
“The only thing I have is a little bit of soreness in my neck and my back — my entire back,” Pirela said through an interpreter.
Still, there is no timetable for when Pirela, who is trying to win a spot on the opening day roster with his productive bat (a 1.063 on-base plus slugging percentage) and tenacious effort, might be back. He met with a doctor Tuesday and was scheduled to undergo neurological testing later in the day.
The next step, Girardi said, would be to have Pirela exercise to accelerate his heart rate and see whether the dizziness returned.
“Hopefully, it doesn’t,” Girardi said. The head injury, sustained in a game against the New York Mets in Port St. Lucie, was not Pirela’s first, nor his most severe. Pirela said he had suffered headaches and threw up after being hit in the head by a pitch in 2012 in a minor league game. He missed nearly six weeks before the symptoms went away. Under Major League Baseball’s policy on head injuries, players are given neurological exams in spring training to provide doctors with a baseline to compare against later injuries.
MLB
Yankees most valuable
NEW YORK — Forbes estimates the New York Yankees are baseball’s most valuable team for the 18th straight year. Forbes claimed Wednesday the Yankees are worth $3.2 billion, up from $2.5 billion last year and matching the Dallas Cowboys for the high among U.S. teams. Forbes estimated the Yankees’ revenue last year at $508 million.
The magazine estimated the Dodgers are worth $2.4 billion and World Series champion San Francisco at $2 billion. It pegged the average worth of an MLB team is $1.2 billion, an increase of 48 percent from last year.
Forbes assigns Real Madrid the high value among all teams in all sports at $3.44 billion.
NATIONALS-CARDINALS
Scherzer strikes out nine
JUPITER, Fla. — Max Scherzer looked amply ready to start on opening day for Washington, striking out nine in six shutout innings during the Nationals’ 1-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday.
Nationals Manager Matt Williams recently announced that the newly acquired Scherzer would make his first career start in an opener. Washington begins at home against the New York Mets on April 6.
Making his fifth start of the spring, the former AL Cy Young Award winner allowed only three hits. He didn’t walk anyone and threw 59 of 82 pitches for strikes.
“That was a result of me executing pitches today,” Scherzer said. “I felt like I did a good job of generating swings and misses with all my pitches, but more importantly I didn’t walk anybody. I was pounding the zone.”
“I think I only fell behind two hitters, too, so that’s a more telling number than anything,” he said.
Cardinals starter Michael Wacha also enjoyed a strong outing, giving up four hits in 5 2/3 innings and striking out four. Wacha retired 13 of 14 batters at one stretch, a string only interrupted by his first walk this spring.
Ty Kelly hit a sacrifice fly in the eighth.
NATIONALS
Rendon questionable
JUPITER, Fla. — Third baseman Anthony Rendon may miss the Washington Nationals’ opener against the New York Mets on April 6 because of a sprained left knee.
Rendon hasn’t played since March 9. When he was scratched from the starting lineup the following day, Manager Matt Williams said Rendon just needed a day off. But the problem has lingered, and Rendon underwent a second MRI Tuesday on his medial collateral ligament.
“Right now it could be in jeopardy because he just simply hasn’t had baseball activity to get ready,” Williams said Wednesday of the opener. “Does that mean he’s not ready for opening day but ready four days later? Potentially, but we just don’t know at this point.”
Williams said Rendon’s knee has improved but still is sore.
“Everything’s healing, it’s just not going as fast as anybody had hoped,” Williams said. “What I don’t want is him limping into a season and then continuing to limp all year and being frustrated by that. We need to get him better, and once he’s better we can go ahead and let it go and let him play the way he’s capable of playing.”
Rendon hit .287 with 21 home runs last year, when he led the NL with 111 runs and finished fifth in MVP voting. Ian Stewart has been the primary third baseman in his absence and began Wednesday with a .323 average. Danny Espinosa and Kevin Frandsen also have seen time at third following the shift of Ryan Zimmerman to first.