Royals Report: 3 Things About Game 2 Loss vs. Boston

2) It Was Debut Day At Kauffman Stadium With Pitcher Alec Mills Getting The Call

With the double-header, the KC Royals brought up AA pitcher Alec Mills from NW Arkansas as the team’s 26th player. With the Kansas City Royals trailing 4-1 in the eighth inning, manager Ned Yost decided to use MIlls.

More from Kings of Kauffman

• KC Royals Rumors: Is a monster move in the cards?
• KC Royals Free Agent Hunt: 3 Tampa Bay pitchers
• Grading the 2022 KC Royals: The $25 million man
• KC Royals Winter Meetings Tracker: Expectations met
• KC Royals Winter Meetings Tracker: Day 3 update

Mills is a pitcher that enjoyed something of a breakthrough last season after suffering an elbow injury and Tommy John surgery in 2013. In 2015, he pitched well at High A Wilmington (3.02 ERA, 111 strikeouts in 113.1 innings) and has continued to succeed at NW Arkansas this year (2.35 ERA in seven starts).

Mills thought he was through with baseball when he was lightly recruited as a high school senior and went to University of Tennessee-Martin as an engineering student. However, he convinced the baseball coaches to give him a tryout and he made the team—and eventually caught the notice of the Kansas City Royals who picked him in the 22nd round in 2012.

The 24-year-old Mills had a bit of a rough introduction to MLB, allowing one hit, two walks, and one hit batsman to allow one earned run in 0.2 inning pitched. Mills got pulled in favor of Chien-Ming Wang with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth.

Though it didn’t go like he hoped, Alec Mills pitched in a major-league game. Few people ever get to say that.

Kudos, Alex. You’ll remember it for the rest of your life.

I’m presuming that the KC Royals will immediately send Mills back to AA at the end of the game.

Next: The Sixth Inning Curse