ATLANTA \u2014 Braves designated hitter Dominic Smith\u2019s mother died less than two weeks ago. He said the team has picked him up the last few weeks, and he returned the favor Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Smith became the first player in MLB history to hit a walk-off grand slam in his debut with a new team, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He finished off the Braves\u2019 six-run ninth inning in a 6-2 win over the Kansas City Royals.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing,\u201d said Smith, who was one of the last players to make the Braves\u2019 opening day roster. \u201cPlayed against the Braves for a long time, and being on the other side a lot of these endings kind of hurt, so to be on the right side of it this time was so fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith told reporters after the game the Braves had been very supportive during spring training when his mother was ill. She was diagnosed with cancer in September and almost died at the start of camp. Smith said he left the team for a little over a week when she had a \u201cscare,\u201d and returned because he was fighting for a job. He was not with her in California when she passed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team is just so awesome,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI\u2019m so blessed because of the love they showed me, the support every day. They\u2019re asking about her, asking about her well-being, my well-being, and that\u2019s all they really cared about. They didn\u2019t care about baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith was able to show his thanks in the ninth inning off Royals closer Carlos Est\u00e9vez, who led MLB in saves last season with 42. The Braves erased a 2-0 deficit on RBI singles by Mike Yastrzemski and Michael Harris II and had the bases loaded with one out. On a 3-2 pitch, after calling timeout to gather himself, Smith lifted a fly ball into the right field seats that sent the sold-out crowd into a frenzy.<\/p>\n
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Smith said he felt his mom\u2019s presence in the celebration, and he looking forward to the Braves road trip to Anaheim next week where he will be able to see family and \u201csay his goodbyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI got choked up a bunch of times, and it\u2019s, you know, I\u2019m trying to hold back tears now,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel her every day. I miss her dearly. It\u2019s not a moment I don\u2019t think about her. And like I said, I\u2019m just so thankful because this team knows what I\u2019m going through. So they really, you know, picked me up the last few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Braves designated hitter Dominic Smith\u2019s mother died less than two weeks ago. He said the team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,192,1092,18701,26712,661,119,4,5095,57061],"class_list":{"0":"post-650586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-braves","10":"tag-carlos-estevez","11":"tag-dominic-smith","12":"tag-elias-sports-bureau","13":"tag-michael-harris-ii","14":"tag-mike-yastrzemski","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-the-braves","17":"tag-the-kansas-city-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116312990467474662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}