It's a moment that every baseball pitcher dreams of: making it to the major leagues and earning your first Major League win. Will Smith of the Kansas City Royals did just that last night over the Cleveland Indians in an 8-2 victory, and he was as ecstatic as you would expect.
"As a little kid, you always dream of just being in the big leagues, and now that you're here, it's an amazing feeling," Smith said. "And you can't describe what you feel, especially to win your first game. It's amazing, it's a dream come true."
Smith went six innings and allowed four hits and two runs while striking out five on the night. The Royals gave Smith plenty of run support and that likely allowed him to calm down. Royals manager Ned Yost noted that the rookie settled in quite well after a shaky first inning where he gave up the only two runs of the day to the Tribe.
"It was real shaky in the first to the point where we got [Vin] Mazzaro up after scoring two, but then he just kind of got after it," Yost said. "He calmed down a little bit, the lead helped him regain his composure, he got a little [ticked] and he said, 'Enough of this, I'm going to start going right after people,' and he did a darn good job from that point on."
Smith was 1-3 at AAA Omaha with a 4.01 ERA through 8 starts when KC called him up.
Read more about Kansas City Royals at Royals Review and head over to Let's Go Tribe for the Indians' perspective. Be sure to check out Baseball Nation for more around Major League Baseball.