How unfazed rookie Bobby Witt Jr. made magic in KC Royals debut, and what it portends
No matter the woes of the recent past, any MLB Opening Day is supposed to be a special scene. One bubbling with anticipation and optimism and the opportunity to animate a blank slate.
But Thursday at Kauffman Stadium arrived bearing something more yet. Not just those perennial hopes of a reset but also what Mike Matheny called “the first real Opening Day with no limitations” from COVID-19 since 2019 … and the magic implied by the major-league debut of The Next Big Thing, 21-year-old Bobby Witt Jr., among the most heralded athletes in Kansas City sports history.
“A lot of buzz,” second baseman Nicky Lopez said, smiling and adding, “Might have been the guy who was hitting second (Witt), but that’s good.”
It was the sort of buzz, Matheny said after the game, he had “never really heard” before in his first two seasons in Kansas City.
The sort of buzz, too, that can fizzle when great expectations go unrequited.
For much of this game against a Cleveland team that went 14-5 against the Royals last year and started Shane Bieber, who had never lost to Kansas City, hopes of that sort of instant gratification were suspended.
Amid heightened hype that included a standing ovation as he stepped to the plate for the first time, Witt went hitless in his first three at-bats.
But even if he took some swings “that I probably didn’t want to,” he’d say later, it’s telling that he was utterly unfazed.
“I thought I’d be a lot more nervous, honestly, just coming into it,” he said afterward. “But beforehand, like the introductions, nothing. And then during the game, nothing, First at-bat, nothing. So when’s this going to happen?”
While Witt meant when was he going to feel overwhelmed, “when’s this going to happen” had another meaning for the crowd and even the team itself. Even if it was his first game with the parent club, Whit Merrifield had seen enough in spring training the last two years that he was among those counting on The Moment.
“(When) he has one or two at-bats where he doesn’t do anything special, we’re like, ‘All right, what’s up, when’s it coming?’” Merrifield said.
In the eighth inning, as it happened, for just the perfect measure of dramatics:
With two outs and Michael A. Taylor on second base, Witt smacked a double to left that broke a 1-1 tie and then scored on Andrew Benitendi’s single to provide the winning margin in a 3-1 triumph.
It was too good to be true, really.
Except … it wasn’t.
“Couldn’t have scripted that better, right?” Matheny said.
Not by much, anyway. Starter Zack Greinke later smiled and said you “could kind of see it coming a little bit.” And when the chance that might have been too big for most mortals on this day came, Witt simply seized it.
“He was just waiting for that moment, I guess,” Merrifield said.
Along with Lopez, Merrifield soaked Witt with an ice bucket even on a blustery day that included some snow flurry sightings around first pitch. To say nothing of some initiation concoction later poured over Witt in the clubhouse.
But nothing was going to douse this day, which also was highlighted by Greinke’s stellar return (one run in 5.2 innings) and 3.1 innings of scoreless relief by Jake Brentz, Josh Staumont and Scott Barlow and a diving catch by Lopez that Greinke told him was one of the greatest plays he’d ever seen in person.
Still, the history to witness on this day was in the form of Witt, the would-be catalyst to the future for the franchise who somehow conjured a memory for any Royals fan to treasure.
Attaching a generational accent to the presumptive role of the No. 2 overall draft pick in 2019, Witt on Thursday became the youngest player in Royals history (21 years, 297 days) to make his MLB debut on opening day and the first man born this century (June 14, 2000) to play for the team.
That stands for a new era on a storybook day for Witt, who also had a terrific throw across the diamond for an out.
And it was a beautiful and uplifting thing to behold, especially as an emblematic snapshot for a franchise working its way back to relevance through a rejuvenated minor-league system. That notion fit nicely on a day the Royals honored legendary super-scout Art Stewart, who died last November; they’ll also wear a jersey patch in his honor this season.
The real measure of Witt’s success, of course, will be in the arc before him. Not every day will go like this in a game that is notorious for its capriciousness and framed by marathon seasons. He surely will have slumps and sometimes wonder when the next hit is coming.
But we got a glimpse, albeit a fleeting one, of him contending with that dynamic last year at Class AA Northwest Arkansas. And I’ll always remember the equilibrium with which he approached that when I went there to see him.
“You either win or you learn, I think,” he said. “That’s how you play it: You’re never really losing, (because) you’re always gaining some type of edge over either the other team or yourself (by) just trying to get yourself better.”
He added, “It’s going to help me in the long run. And whenever it happens, I’m going to shoot off like a rocket from there.”
That’s part of an infinitely upbeat and humble attitude, one reflected in about anyone around the team telling you how he’s always smiling. That attitude also is part of how he’s won over teammates despite all the spotlight he’s getting.
If that sounds familiar, it should: It’s much like Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, says Bobby Stroupe, who has trained each.
“A candle doesn’t burn out by lighting other candles,” Stroupe told me last year. “And those two guys, they get it: They understand that energy gives energy. And the only way to succeed is to connect with people.”
Moreover, neither feels constrained by other people’s sense of boundaries or thinks of expectations as burdens.
“That’s not really how they deal with themselves or speak to themselves,” Stroupe said. “They’re in the moment.”
That’s the intangible stuff, both in Witt’s own innate temperament and cultivated by family and coaches, that enabled Thursday’s highlight. And it’s what made the Royals have faith he was ready and even compelled Matheny to bat him second.
All of that suggests this: Witt has the rare makeup not only to thrive in a pressure-cooker but also to navigate the inevitable pitfalls.
So when he came up in the eighth inning, game essentially on the line, he didn’t get more nervous.
What, him worry?
“I got more excited … I just felt, I guess, comfortable up there,” he said, later adding that he thinks he’s able to stay calm because he’s “just been doing it for so long. It’s just a part of me now.”
That mojo is also a part of the Royals now … and just maybe the link to a revival of the franchise.
“This was the day I’ve been waiting for my whole life,” Witt said. “Now it’s here and I want to just keep doing it.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 at 9:42 PM.