Ever oversleep and miss something important? It has happened to the best of us. And today, it happened to Royals rookie Carter Jensen.
The 22-year-old catcher was supposed to be in the starting lineup for the series finale Thursday afternoon against the Twins. With Salvador Perez catching in wet conditions last night, typically teams like to switch catchers for the day game after a night game. But reporters and fans were puzzled when Jensen was a late scratch, particularly when he was later seen warming up.
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It turns out Jensen had overslept. He later entered the game in the ninth inning after Salvy was replaced by a pinch runner. To his credit, he faced reporters after the game and took responsibility.
“No running from it. Just didn’t wake up to my alarm, slept through it. Don’t really have an excuse, nor should I. You know, it sucks and it happens. I felt let my teammates down, coaches down. I’ll just learn from it and know it won’t happen again.”
“There’s a lot to learn from, and I think it’s just, you know, making sure if I don’t set one alarm, maybe set three or four, as many as possible. So moving forward, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to set a million alarms to make sure I’m up.”
Veteran Vinnie Pasquantino revealed the team had tried to contact Carter’s parents in an effort to find him.
“You got a 36-year-old catcher who’s preparing to DH today, then his world gets a little rocked that an hour and a half before the game, he’s not going to be DHing. Credit to Salvy today for being ready.
First and foremost, we are glad that Carter is OK, right? I mean, that was kind of the initial thought, when you are trying to get ahold of his parents and everything like that just to make sure he is OK. But once you find out he’s OK, it’s like, ‘Alright, it’s a growing moment.‘
He’s really young, there are some things that cannot happen, and that’s one of them. So he’s going to have to wear it on the chin, the same way anyone would have to. So it can’t happen. And hopefully it doesn’t happen again.
You just can’t afford mistakes like that in this game. You just gotta move forward the best oyu can. I know he feels really bad. I know its not his favorite drive to the field this morning, but it wasn’t our favorite morning either trying to figure what was going on. He’ll learn from it, grow up a little bit. We’re here for him though, its not like anybody’s mad at him. Things happen. You gotta learn from mistakes like that and maybe get another alarm clock or something.”
What’s funny is that the Royals social media team had players in spring training talk about how many alarms they needed to wake up in the morning.
“This is embarrassing,” remarks Jensen, “but I need at least 6 to 8 alarms. It’s not good.”
Thankfully, he wasn’t scratched due to an injury – or worse. Hopefully the rookie gets a hefty fine in kangaroo court, learns from his mistake, and moves on. With a better alarm clock!
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