Carter Jensen should face discipline after embarrassing Royals news cycle (but won't)

By now every single Kansas City Royals fan is aware of what happened with the team's top prospect, Carter Jensen on Thursday. The 22-year-old overslept, and as a result, missed the start of the Royals' series finale against the Minnesota Twins. He came on in relief of catcher Salvador Perez during the ninth inning.

By all accounts this is an embarrassing set of circumstances for Jensen and the entire Royals organization. Though he stood in front of the cameras and took a handful of hard-hitting questions following the team's 5-1 loss to the Twins, manager Matt Quatraro should send an even louder message to Jensen, and in effect, the entire team. Unfortunately, he can't.

Carter Jensen should be benched, but the Royals won't do that to Salavdor Perez

What should happen isn't feasible. Jensen should be optioned back to Triple-A, but because Kansas City has just two catchers on the 40-man roster — one of whom is the 35-year-old Perez — the Royals can't take such a drastic step.

Furthermore, because of Salvy's age, Quatraro isn't going to punish the Royals' captain by having him start multiple games in a row behind the dish while the club's top prospect rides the pine — even though he should. In all likelihood, Jensen will be back behind the plate for the Royals' series opener against the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday.

Jensen has probably caught more than his fair share of flack from his teammates. Vinnie Pasquantino gave a very candid response reporters following Thursday's loss.

“You got a 36-year-old catcher who’s preparing to DH then his world gets a little rocked that an hour-and-a-half before the game he's not going to be DHing, " Pasquantino said. "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."

Jensen has some social media backlash that's causing a stir as well. His mom coming to his defense, while well meaning to be sure, isn't going to help the situation. There's also a clip circulating on social media of Jensen saying that he typically needs to set six to eight alarms in order to get out of bed. Maybe he should've set nine on Thursday.

Like Pasquantino said, Jensen's going to have to wear this one on the chin. It's inexcusable and can't happen again. The Royals roster construction may prevent Kansas City from taking drastic action, but the organization's trust is surely wavering at the moment.

Jensen's on-field performance to begin the season hasn't helped either. He's just 2-for-16 after putting up some rather paltry numbers during spring training. The Royals need to see more maturity out of their young prospect moving forward, because it's obvious he's got a lot of growing up to do.