SURPRISE, Ariz. _ During the makeshift chapel service adjacent to the Royals' clubhouse Sunday morning, one aspect of the sermon particularly resonated with pitcher Kyle Zimmer.
It was about Moses, self-described as "slow of speech and tongue" (Exodus 4:10) ... yet tasked to speak and lead.
The lesson to Zimmer:
"If you don't have trust in yourself, that's basically saying you don't have trust in God," he said, adding that the moment spoke to him as an affirmation of "having faith that his plan is greater than your own, and just trusting that in the end everything is going to be exactly as it should be."
Christianity is a way of life for Zimmer, so forgive him if it "sounds weird" or taboo that he might see an application of all that in baseball _ which is just a sliver of his life but, in fact, entwined with who he is.
But it provides him "perspective on a micro level" on what might be called a burdensome career trajectory for the fifth pick overall in the 2012 draft, who seven impossibly injury-riddled seasons later at last made his Major League debut ...
Only to be sent down to Class AAA Omaha days later with command issues that underscored last season and undermined the breakthrough.
He abruptly went from feeling a sensation of "floating" as he walked off the field that long-awaited inaugural night, when he struck out two White Sox in a scoreless eighth inning, to seeming to float away.
At least from the outside looking in at Zimmer, who came back to Kansas City in July and went back to Omaha in August before finishing the season for the parent club with a total of 18.1 innings pitched in 15 appearances and a 10.80 ERA after yielding 28 hits and 19 walks to just 18 strikeouts.
But whatever it looked like to others, it was something else altogether from the inside looking out.
The season more than anything else was about getting over a mental hurdle, so much so that about the first thing he said about it as we chatted Sunday is that "there was a weight lifted off my back."
Though Zimmer acknowledged he was "rocked" when he was sent down after so many years of persevering only to stick around just a couple weeks, the season absolutely was a net positive for him.
"Definitely: It was the first healthy season of my professional career," he said, smiling. "And I played through September. I hadn't even gotten through August before. And I felt like I could have kept going."
Perhaps that sounds like a token point of consolation. But it actually addresses a few fundamental and meaningful elements about Zimmer's winding path.
Naturally enough, his precarious health had come to consume his thoughts after the never-ending injuries.
(To sum up: elbow surgery in 2012; bicep tendinitis in 2013; shoulder surgery in 2014; shoulder soreness in 2015; thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in 2016; debilitating shoulder soreness in 2017; shoulder fatigue in 2018 that effectively ended his season after retiring one batter in spring training.)
With his health at last apparently stabilized through an exhaustive rehabilitative program with Driveline Baseball performance training, Zimmer came to realize some other things he'd have to reset.
"In the past, I was so worried about just being healthy that I had to sort of shift to, 'OK, now you've got to worry about performance,' " he said. "So it was a different thing to overcome and battle through, because I hadn't thought about performance in years.
"So it was a whole different battle that I had to reintroduce myself to and relearn."
Meanwhile, he also was adjusting to something more technical and less tangible.
"My arm sort of works completely different than it had my whole life," he said. "I sort of remapped my arm path, which allowed me to stay healthy. But it was just different getting used to that different rhythm and timing."
Through the ups and downs of last season and offseason, Zimmer believes he has come to remedy mechanical issues.
For instance, getting more focused on working out of the stretch and avoiding a tendency to pull his head back and open his shoulders up _ something he caught himself doing and adjusting to in a matter of a few pitches the other day.
How this plays out from here, of course, is impossible to know. Zimmer may or may not make the 25-man roster out of camp, but he's certainly in the chase and still has coveted power.
And this much he knows:
For all the curveballs last season threw at him, he took meaningful steps forward both as a player and a person.
He realizes more than ever how fortunate he is to be here, to have another chance, to be among dear friends in the pursuit and to be healthy enough to experience the more routine ups and downs that he learned last year don't have to be soul-crushing.
And he realizes he's exactly where he's supposed to be on the journey, wherever it takes him.
"I think in the past I was sort of looking back and thinking 'what could I have done differently; how did I end up in this position?'" he said. "Or focusing too much on the future, like, 'Hey, once I get healthy, I'll be able to do X,Y and Z.'"
Now, though, he is rooted in the present, believing all the more that everything will be as it should be ... however that might turn out.
