Kansas City Royals: Eric Skoglund provides most exciting moment of 2017

The Kansas Royals have had a rough go of it in 2017, but Tuesday night was without a doubt the most exciting moment to occur so far this season. Eric Skoglund made his Major League debut and dazzled everyone watching.

Kansas City Royals fans have grown accustom to opposing teams’ pitchers making their MLB debut shutting down the Royals bats. They always manage to look like Hall of Famers and it’s depressing. When the Royals throw a new guy to the mound, however, the game is over two minutes in.

These past experiences are why when the KC Royals announced that Eric Skoglund would be making his Major League debut on Tuesday night, that fans expected the absolute worst. Not only was this Skoglund’s first game in the majors, but he’d be squaring off against Justin Verlander.

My dad, brother, and I had tickets to Tuesday’s game and we all agreed that the game was going to be ugly. We said that if Skoglund could make it through three innings without taking the Royals out of the game completely that we’d consider that a success. None of us predicted the team to win or even come close to winning.

Boy, how glad the three of us were to be so wrong! Eric Skoglund pitched a gem in his debut, twirling 6.1 innings of two-hit baseball and allowed zero runs. That’s right! ZERO RUNS! Skoglund earned the win during his debut, which was equally impressive (though his offense only sported him one run of support).

Skoglund has more wins this season than Ian Kennedy and has just as many as Jason Hammel. Both of those guys have had plenty of opportunities to put W’s on the board, but have failed to come through (or the offense has sucked).

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I was pleasantly surprised with how well Eric Skoglund pitched and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

The Royals just lost Danny Duffy for two months with an oblique strain and the fans are beginning to lose interest. If Skoglund can continue pitching well, perhaps the fan base will be reeled back in and the team can build off of that and make a run.

I don’t expect Skoglund to go out there and throw a shutout every time (in fact, I predict he gets lit up next time he pitches), but hey… It was fun! It was a blast finally getting to see a young starter make his debut and dominant against an offensive-heavy Detroit Tigers team.

In a season filled with early disappointments, it was nice to finally see Kauffman Stadium filled with happy fans. Those same fans let Skoglund hear how proud they were of him and he thanked them by waving his Royals hat in the air to every perimeter of the stadium. Class act.

When I go back and name some of the regular season memories I had at the K, this will easily be mentioned, no matter what Skoglund does for the duration of his young career.

I know it’s too early to write the book on Eric Skoglund, but right now, let’s just enjoy the moment. It was a fun one!