Blaine Boyer's journey has him back with Royals

Blaine Boyer’s baseball career has taken him to a lot of places. This is his second stint with the Royals since his former Atlanta Braves boss Dayton Moore signed him out of retirement five years ago.

“He’s a man of integrity, he’s a natural-born leader, he loves his guys and that’s what separates Dayton from everyone else,” Boyer said. “He’s an unbelievable man, and I love him to death. He was obviously the first guy I was going to call.”

This spring, Boyer is bringing his own revamped strategy to the Kansas City bullpen. With more command on his fastball and a deadly early-count curveball, the former third-rounder is hoping to build on a strong start to spring training.

And the most important person to impress on the club is noticing.

“He’s a strike thrower,” manager Ned Yost said. “He looked tremendous yesterday in batting practice and you really don’t put too much stock in that, but I mean as a veteran it just kind of reinforces what you already know. That his stuff is still really, really good and that he still competes his tail off which is interesting to see.”

In fact, Yost prefers the 36-year old version of Boyer to the one that showed up to camp back in 2013.

“To be honest with you a little bit, he actually looks a little bit better,” Yost said. “His stuff looks a little sharper, he just looks better.”

After his signing in 2013, Boyer pitched 15 innings with the Class AAA Omaha Storm Chasers before being released that May. That roster transaction opened up an interesting and unique opportunity for the right-handed reliever and his family.

For the remainder of that season, Boyer decided to take his talents and his family across the Pacific Ocean. In Japan, Boyer signed with the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball after feeling physically fresh after the start of the MLB season.

“I felt great,” Boyer said. “Felt really, really, really good and then Japan called with an opportunity to go out there and make a good amount of money. So, Jan, the boys and I just packed up and went to Japan and we had a blast out there.”

This will be Boyer’s sixth team since his return from Japan, although he is not letting the annual change of scenery affect his mentality heading into this season. Boyer, a Georgia native is hoping to make the big league squad out of camp and let the future take care of itself.

“Just do what I can do,” Boyer said. “I know I can perform at the major league level. The hope is I break here with the team and that’ll be all she wrote.”

After throwing one scoreless inning in his spring-training debut on Monday against the Giants, the catcher he threw to is already anticipating a strong year out of Boyer and one of his favorite pitches.

“The ball is coming out of his hand really well, had really good command of that cutter, and I think that’s his big pitch that we’ll use to get a lot of outs,” Royals catcher Drew Butera said.

Since retiring from MLB to become a real-estate broker, the one-time high school phenom out of Marietta, Ga., has been asked every question and written about countless times on his return to baseball after retirement. The most famous return-from-retirement athlete of recent memory was a certain legendary quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. But Boyer is not letting the similarities between himself and Brett Favre stop there.

“We both have beards, too.”

This story was originally published March 1, 2018 at 10:38 PM with the headline "Blaine Boyer's journey has him back with Royals."