‘Dream come true’: Ryan O’Hearn hits a homer, helps Royals to a win in debut

Hours after he hit his first career home run in his first career game, a baseball sat on the top shelf of Royals prospect Ryan O’Hearn’s locker in the visiting clubhouse at Guaranteed Rate Field Tuesday night.

Handwritten across the front, in between the seams, were the words “Bryan O’Hearn 1st (homer).”

The ball was displayed proudly, although it was not the one O’Hearn had roped 359 feet into the Craft Kave at right field for his first career hit in the Royals’ 4-2 win over the White Sox. This one was a fake conjured by reliever Brandon Maurer. A team official had absconded with the baseball that would be authenticated and handed back to O’Hearn for safekeeping.

For now, the counterfeit would do.

“I’m just at a loss for words,” said O’Hearn, who finished 1 for 3 with two runs scored, two RBIs and a walk. “I’m excited to be here and today was the most fun I had at a baseball field — once I settled down a little bit — ever.”

O’Hearn, 25, had woken up jet-lagged in a major-league team’s Chicago hotel for the first time in his life Tuesday morning. Not even lack of rest could dampen his mood.

He’d learned two days earlier he was headed for this moment, for his major-league debut in the middle of the Royals’ three-series road trip. He was too excited to care his sleep schedule had been messed up from the moment Class AAA Omaha manager Brian Poldberg called him into his office at Chukchansi Park in Fresno, Calif., where the Storm Chasers were playing during the weekend, to deliver the news.

“I’m wired, man,” said O’Hearn, who took the spot of outfielder Brian Goodwin (left groin strain) on the active roster and debuted as a designated hitter. “I’m ready to go.”

So was the second pitch O’Hearn received from White Sox starter and former Royals pitcher James Shields in his second at-bat of the night. The curveball dropped into the strike zone just below O’Hearn’s belt. With his family members watching from their seats above the first-base dugout, O’Hearn unfurled his left-handed swing, caught the pitch with the end of his bat and roped a two-run home run.

It wasn’t the decisive blow. New Royals outfielder Brett Phillips provided the insurance in the seventh inning with a two-run blast, his first hit in a KC uniform since being acquired from the Brewers in the trade of Mike Moustakas late Friday.

But O’Hearn’s blast gave the Royals a 2-0 lead and launched him into the annals of Royals history. He became the third Royals player to hit a home run in his major-league debut, joining Clint Hurdle (1977) and Mark Quinn (1999). An even more obscure note: O’Hearn is the first Royals player since Hurdle to knock a homer for his first major-league hit.

A left-handed hitter the Royals selected in the eighth round of the 2014 draft out of Sam Houston State, O’Hearn had become known for his power stroke. He’d hit 95 home runs in 558 minor-league games before the Royals moved Cheslor Cuthbert to the 60-day disabled list to make room for O’Hearn on the 40-man roster on Tuesday. Although O’Hearn’s .391 slugging percentage in 100 games this year didn’t reflect it, the Royals were encouraged by the metrics. O’Hearn had become one of the Class AAA leaders in average exit velocity.

“Dayton wanted to get a look at him,” manager Ned Yost said. “His numbers weren’t great but if you break down whatever metrics you look for all that stuff, he was smoking the ball. A lot of hard outs. A lot of real hard outs. He was swinging the bat pretty good but he just didn’t wasn’t having much to show for it.”

That wasn’t the case Tuesday. O’Hearn’s home run cut through the air here at a speed of 96 mph, destined to fall in fair territory even as O’Hearn questioned it off the bat.

As the Royals improved to 33-73 and Danny Duffy earned the victory after allowing four walks and throwing 112 pitches in 5 2/3 scoreless innings, Maurer sought a ball and a Sharpie. He scribbled a slang word for “home runs” that is unfit for publication across the cowhide and gave the ball to O’Hearn some time after catcher Salvador Perez upended a cooler of water over the rookie’s head.

The ball wasn’t what O’Hearn had expected.

But neither was the night.

“Dream come true,” he said. “I’m glad we won.”

This story was originally published July 31, 2018 at 10:27 PM.