When Mike Yastrzemski hit a home run in his first at bat as a Royal last week, it got me thinking about who else was in that club. The Royals have never been known as a home run hitting team or even as a team that develops home run hitters. There have been rare exceptions. Steve Balboni had a good power year in 1985, and his single season record held for over three decades until broken by Mike Moustakas, Jorge Soler and most recently Sal Perez. When talking about the history of Royal sluggers, that’s
about it. Sure, you could throw in some one hit wonders like Chili Davis, Gary Gaetti and Dean Palmer but at the end of the day, you could fit all the Royals sluggers in a minivan.
The list of hitters who went yard in their first at bat for the Royals is surprisingly short. And even more of a surprise, the first time didn’t happen until the team was in its 27th season.
The first was outfielder Jon Nunnally, who was picked up by the Royals in the 1994 Rule 5 draft from Cleveland. Nunnally was the leadoff hitter for Kansas City on April 29th, 1995, in a game at the K against the Yankees when he cranked a home run off Melido Perez.
Nunnally played six seasons in the majors with that 1995 rookie campaign being his best. He appeared in 119 games and stroked a career best 14 home runs. His season was worth 2.5 WAR which put him in 8th in the Rookie of the Year voting.
The second came from a guy I have no recollection of: Yamil Benetiz. Mr. Benetiz was acquired from the Expos prior to the 1997 season, having appeared in 25 games with Montreal over the previous two years. In those days the Royals were losing a lot of games and took flyers on just about anyone who they thought could play. Benetiz got the start in right field on July 14th, 1997, in a game at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The Royals jumped out to an early lead on a 1st inning solo shot by Jay Bell. Benetiz came to the plate in the second inning, with two men on and slammed a 2-0 pitch from Dave Stevens deep into the left field stands, which provided the winning runs in a 5-3 Royal victory. Benetiz performed adequately in his short time in Kansas City, 53 games with a .267 batting average and 8 home runs and 31 RBI in just 191 at bats. Arizona picked him off the roster in the 1998 expansion draft. He played 91 more games with the D-backs before spending the next two seasons bouncing around AAA. He wrapped his career with three seasons in the Mexican League.
When I say I have no recollection of a player, I don’t mean it with any disrespect. Quite the opposite. If a guy is one of the few to ever play pro ball, a tip of the cap. In those days I had other things occupying my time, namely career and children. When that’s going on, it’s easier to miss the day-to-day flailing’s of a team losing 90 to 100 games each year. Which brings us to our third hitter, Adam Moore. The Royals had picked up Moore, a catcher, with a wavier claim from Seattle in July of 2012. The Longview, Texas native spent some time in Omaha, where he hit a robust .293, before getting the call to Kansas City. He only got into four games in 2012 but made the most of the first one, a September 23rd game at Kauffman against the Indians. Batting 9th, Moore came up in the 3rd inning and blasted a long home run into the left field stands off David Huff. The shot gave the Royals a short lived 1-0 lead in a game they would eventually lose 15 to 4. The game was actually pretty close until the 7th inning when the Indians nicked Everett Teaford, Vin Mazzaro and Tommy Hottovy for five runs. The Tribe blew it open in the 9th with seven more runs off Jeremy Jeffress and Louis Coleman.
The fourth Royal to homer in his first team at-bat was an unexpected name with ties to the Royals 2015 World Series team: Lucas Duda. Duda was an eight-year vet and bona fide power hitter (125 home runs with the Mets) prior to coming to Kansas City. The Royals signed Duda as a free agent for the 2018 season after Eric Hosmer signed his mega deal with the Padres. Duda wasn’t terrible with the Royals, but the fact was he was 32 and on the wrong side of the aging curve. He got into 87 games, hitting .242 with 13 home runs. In the season opener on March 29th, Duda came to the plate with two men on in the first inning against former Royal James Shields. Shields left a 2-0 pitch hanging and Duda promptly deposited said ball over the wall in right-center to give the Royals a quick 4-0 lead. In the end it didn’t matter much, as the White Sox pounded five home runs, including three by Matt Davidson (he of 54 career home runs) leading the Hose to a 14 to 7 laugher.
Kansas City sold Duda to Atlanta in August for their playoff push. He returned to the Royals on a free agent deal for the 2019 season, appearing in 39 games before calling it a career at the age of 33.
The last Royal to homer in his first at-bat came to the team in a deadline deal and for a brief instant gave us hope that we’d acquired a real slugger. That would be Nelson Velasquez who came over from the Cubs in a deal for Jose Cuas. Velasquez got the start in right field against the Cardinals on August 11th, 2023, and leading off the 2nd inning against Adam Wainwright, ripped a 1-0 pitch deep over the left-center wall, giving the Royals a 5-0 lead. Bobby Jr. and Captain Sal also homered later in the inning to put the Royals up 9-0. It was glorious. The Royals hung on to win that one by the score of 12-8. Velasquez looked like the real deal in 2023, crashing 14 home runs in just 147 plate appearances. Unfortunately, it was fools’ gold. Velasquez is playing this summer for Oaxaca in the Mexican League and doing quite well, hitting a robust .365 with 14 home runs in just 44 games.
Which brings us to our last our last celebrant, Mr. Yastrzemski. Baby Yaz, grandson of Hall of Famer Carl “bleeping” Yastrzemski ( Carl Bleeping Yastrzemski – Royals Review) didn’t make his major league debut until the age of 28. The Orioles didn’t think him much of a prospect before trading him to the Giants in a nondescript 2019 trade. Yastrzemski proved the doubters wrong by blasting 21 home runs in his rookie campaign and has been a solid 2 – 2.5 WAR player each year since. He introduced himself to Kansas City fans by lofting a Kevin Gausman pitch over the right field fence to give the Royals a 2-1 lead. Hopefully, Yastrzemski can keep up his clutch hitting over the last two months of the season.
I don’t have the resources to verify this, but according to the internet, only 133 players in major league history have hit home runs in their first at-bats with a new team. Sounds kind of light to me, but who’s to argue with what you read on the internet, right? Only 136 players have homered in their first major league at-bat, which again sounds low. In that category, Will Clark deserves mention. Clark went yard in his first plate appearance against Nolan Ryan in 1986. In an even stranger twist, The Thrill also homered in his first game in A ball. And in AA. And in AAA. Clark was no flash in the pan. He was an outstanding hitter, who accrued over 56 WAR and six All-Star appearances in his 15-year career. He drove home over 100 runs four times and over 90 another three. To me, Will Clark should be in the Hall of Fame.
To make it worse, the Royals drafted Clark out of high school, in the 4th round of the 1982 draft. He didn’t sign, for what reason I don’t know. Probably money. The Royals first round pick in 1982 was John Morris, who they later traded to St. Louis for Lonnie Smith. Smith was a key contributor to the 1985 championship team. They took a kid named Saberhagen in the 19th round (and signed him). He turned out okay. But for whatever reason, they whiffed on Clark. Ouch.
Clark went to Mississippi State instead, where he became a star. The Giants took him with the 2nd overall pick in the 1985 draft (behind B. J. Surhoff, and right before Bobby Witt Sr.). That 1985 first round was something else, with those three and later Barry Larkin, Barry Bonds, Pete Incaviglia, Walt Weiss, Brian McRae (KC), Joe Magrane, Gregg Jeffries and Rafael Palmeiro. That’s about 471 WAR if you’re counting at home.
For the greatest first at-bat home run ever, I vote for Daniel Nava. Nava’s baseball journey is worthy of a movie: starting as an equipment manager for his college team before going to a junior college. Going undrafted, he played in an independent league before signing with Boston for $1. He paid his dues through the minors before getting an unlikely shot with the Red Sox in June of 2010. Prior to the game, Red Sox announcer Joe Castiglione told Nava to “swing hard at the first pitch because that’s the only first pitch in the majors you’ll ever see”. Nava came to the plate in the bottom of the 2nd with the bases loaded. He swung hard at the first pitch from Joe Blanton of the Phillies and hit a grand slam home run, becoming just the 4th person in major league history to achieve that feat. Nava ended up playing seven seasons in the majors, including 9 games with the Royals at the tail end of the 2016 season. This is why we love baseball.
