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BOSTON -- Adrenaline will flash-flood through Yordano Ventura, his pitching coach assumes, because he'll be in the middle of the Sunday Night Baseball stage in a very big game for the Royals against a great lineup. This will be a test of the progress Ventura has made the past couple of months in building more composure, in embracing the advice that for him, sometimes less is more. What Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland would love to see between pitches is Ventura's shoulders rise and fall with deep breaths, to keep that counterproductive emotion constrained. He would love to see Ventura control his delivery and, by extension, his fastball, but he knows this will require effort from his pitcher, and maybe catcher Salvador Perez, who could deliver therapy 15 seconds at a time by visiting the mound. Ventura's wrestling matches with his emotions have been constant since he reached the big leagues, and he has been winning in recent weeks, after Eiland told him that all of the mound eruptions needed to stop if Ventura is to reach his stated goal of becoming the Felix Hernandez of the Royals: a reliable, steady force in the rotation.
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