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Today in Royals History: Alex Gordon debuts

April 2, 2007.

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Christian Petersen

On this date in 2007, in the Royals home opener, Alex Gordon made his big league debut. He was the fourth Royal in history to have his major league debut on Opening Day.

Three consecutive singles in the first brought Gordon to bat against Curt Schilling with the bases loaded. It could not have been more symbolic. The Kauffman Stadium crowd rose and greeted the young third baseman with a standing ovation.

And Gordon struck out.

He struck out looking in the third. In the fifth he was hit by a pitch. He finished his day at the plate with a ground out to first.

Batting AB R H RBI BB SO BA OPS Pit Str WPA aLI
David DeJesus CF 5 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 16 10 -0.128 0.83
Mark Grudzielanek 2B 5 2 3 3 0 0 .600 1.400 23 13 0.285 0.74 2B
Mark Teahen RF 4 0 2 1 0 2 .500 1.000 13 11 0.065 0.66
Mike Sweeney DH 4 0 2 0 0 1 .500 1.000 11 6 0.033 0.79
Alex Gordon 3B 3 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .250 18 14 -0.083 0.87 HBP
Ryan Shealy 1B 3 0 0 1 1 1 .000 .250 20 13 0.059 0.95 GDP
Ross Gload LF 4 1 1 0 0 0 .250 .500 13 9 -0.095 0.93
John Buck C 4 2 2 1 0 0 .500 2.000 12 8 0.038 0.44 HR,2B
Tony Pena SS 3 2 2 1 1 1 .667 2.750 20 11 0.087 0.50 2·3B
Gil Meche P
Joel Peralta P
Team Totals 35 7 12 7 2 8 .343 .995 146 95 0.261 0.75
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/1/2014.

The 2007 Opener was notable for a couple other reasons:

-- Tony Pena, Jr. hit two triples. Seriously. Look above. That was the start of a career year for the Royals shortstop. He hit .267/.284/.356. Career highs in all slash stats.

-- Gil Meche made his Royals debut. At five years and $55 million, his contract remains the largest in Royals history in both years and total dollars. This is slowly becoming as notable as Steve Balboni's franchise home run record. Meche went 7.1 innings and struck out six.

-- The Royals announced the creation of the Buck O'Neil Legacy Seat. Created to honor the late O'Neil, the seat is Monarch Red and still in use (and should never, ever go away.) The first honoree was Buck's younger brother Warren.