KANSAS CITY — Stop the presses: Duncan Davitt made his Major League debut Friday night for the White Sox during a 2-0 victory for the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.
Davitt, 26, actually made history Thursday during the series opener, even though he never took the mound. It’s an unofficial sort of history, but interesting nonetheless. Davitt became the first player to be recalled from the Minor Leagues, with Triple-A Charlotte being his departure destination in this instance, and then write about said callup that same day in his column entitled "Call to the Bullpen."
That column runs occasionally in the Indianola Independent Advocate, which is owned and operated by his parents. Amy Duncan, his mother, serves as the publisher, while his father, Mark Davitt, takes care of photography.
In the offseason, Davitt is a freelance writer who covers prep sports. Now those hard-working athletes Davitt talks with and writes about can watch their favorite reporter work in the big leagues.
“I try not to make it about myself,” said Davitt of his part-time reporting career. “I'm not there for me, I'm there for them, give them kind of a voice and a picture in the paper. I try not to talk about it with the players.
“Some of the coaches know, and we've talked about it with them. Not really so much with the players."
Let’s take Davitt’s reporting career and bump it off the front page for a moment. Pitching is his main profession after all.
With the White Sox trailing, 2-0, in the seventh, Davitt started to warm up. Grant Taylor also warmed up in the eighth in case the White Sox were able to erase that two-run deficit against reliever Matt Strahm.
When the White Sox went down in order, Davitt got the call. He walked Kyle Isbel on a 3-2 pitch, which was challenged by catcher Edgar Quero through the ABS system but was clearly a ball. Maikel Garcia followed with a ground ball to shortstop Colson Montgomery at 104 mph on the exit velocity, per Statcast, snagged slickly by Montgomery and turned into a double play.
Bobby Witt Jr., who extended his hitting streak to 23 straight against the White Sox with a fourth-inning run-scoring double against Davis Martin, flied out to end Davitt’s debut.
“There's something to be said about being forged in fire,” said an ecstatic Davitt postgame Friday. “So, if you go through those two guys and manage to come out unscathed, it's a nice learning experience and 'OK, I can do this' kind of a moment.
“Sitting in the dugout afterward, and I was going to meet some family and sitting out there and seeing the fireworks, it's a feeling unmatched. You can't get anything better."
Martin and Kris Bubic turned in a veritable pitchers' battle lasting a mere 1 hour, 55 minutes on a rare cold night in Kansas City. Bubic set a career-high with 11 strikeouts over seven innings, allowing just two hits, while Martin needed only 82 pitches to get through a season-high seven innings.
Along with the Witt connection scoring Garcia, Martin made one lone mistake to Carter Jensen, resulting in a 425-foot home run to right field for an important seventh-inning insurance run. Martin has a 2.50 ERA over three starts and 18 innings.
“This is probably the best knowledge of my stuff,” Martin said. “Obviously, there's still so much more that I feel like I can accomplish and so much more refining that I think I can do, but from this year to last year, I feel like I know what pitches are working, I know how to use them.”
“He has good stuff, throws strikes and he’s not scared,” said White Sox manager Will Venable of Martin. “Good ingredients to have for a good starting pitcher.”
Venable turned to Davitt to complete Friday’s White Sox story. With his family in attendance supporting him, Davitt’s latest column wasn’t going immediately to press after this memorable night. Yes, he missed the deadline, but for a very good reason.
Kauffman Stadium is 2 1/2 hours from Indianola, so Davitt came to the Royals’ home more often than any other place as a kid. Volleyball was pointed to by Davitt as one of his favorite sports to cover, but it was all about baseball Friday although he couldn’t come up with a headline for his effort.
“Let the boss decide,” a smiling Davitt said. “You go through the moment and you kind of are shown that you belong. Go through a little bump with the walk, and then find out that the stuff can get outs. It's a nice little lift-me-up."