Kansas City, Mo. ? Ned Yost has been through this before.

Yost helped turn the Milwaukee Brewers from a perennial loser into a playoff team, and now will have the chance to do the same with the Royals. The ailing franchise gave him a two-year contract extension Saturday that will keep him in Kansas City through 2012.

Hired as a special adviser to baseball operations in January, Yost was called up to replace the fired Trey Hillman in May. He was 31-37 since taking over entering Saturday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles, and is confident his team is turning the corner.

“Soon as I got here this spring, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Yost said. “To come in and help build that up at the top is very, very appealing to me. I never wanted to play my options out. I never wanted to go anywhere else. This is where I wanted to be.”

Yost, who was on the Atlanta Braves staff from 1991-2002, turned around a Brewers franchise from 2003-08 that had finished 56-106 and 41 games out of first place before he arrived.

The Royals have not made the playoffs since winning the 1985 World Series and have had only one winning season since 1994. They lost 100 or more games in four of five seasons from 2002-06.