Royals pitcher Burch Smith sat in the visiting dugout at Target Field one day before he made his first major-league start in five years and told a reporter the moment wasn’t going to swallow him up.
At 28 years old, he’s already done the whole being-overwhelmed-by-the-big-league-lights thing. Playing at this level is not a stress factor in his life anymore. It’s one part of his makeup that Royals officials glommed onto when they decided to pursue Smith in December’s Rule 5 Draft, one pick after trading up for 22-year-old pitcher Brad Keller.
So when asked what it meant to him to receive an opportunity to start after spending the first three months of the season locked into a foreign role in the bullpen, Smith said it was all fine.