The day he heard that the NBA was shutting down, Orioles pitcher Branden Kline knew that coronavirus lockdowns were catching up to professional sports, but he didn’t realize just how quickly they would come for spring training.

“That day we had a game,” he remembers. “We were on the bus going to Fort Myers to play the Twins. About 10 minutes later they turned the bus around to go back. That’s when it sunk in: Oh crap, this is real.”

Major League Baseball had also shut down. Kline hung around the Sarasota facilities for a week or so and then realized there was no point in staying. He went home to Augusta, Georgia, to be with his wife, Sarah, and almost 3-year-old daughter, Adalyn (or Addy).

Kline has relished the time with his “girls,” as he calls them—the greatest silver lining of this whole pandemic. He’s been cooking more—learning marinades, Instant Pot recipes, and mastering his best dish, a chicken thigh wrapped in bacon with sweet potato—and cleaning, too. He’s also been amazed at how much destruction a little 2-year-old girl can do.

Kline calls himself a coffee connoisseur—“or coffee snob, if you prefer”—and has been learning more about different kinds of beans, from different roasteries and regions. He’s also getting into wine, learning about how factors like sun, temperature, and time of harvest can affect the taste.

“That’s the kind of thing that fascinates me, in a nerdy way,” he says.

Despite living in Augusta, home of the Masters, he says he’s not a great golfer—yet.

“If you saw me play right now you would throw up,” he cracks. But he’s determined to get good. It’s the competitor in him (his father and brother-in-law are both pretty decent golfers).

For entertainment, he and Sarah just finished Netflix’s The English Game, about the early days of soccer, which he recommends. And they’ve taken on a massive undertaking: rewatching every Marvel film, from the beginning.

“That’s been time consuming,” he admits.

Mostly, he’s been hanging out with Addy, whom he says is always sunny and happy, and lifts his spirits “except for when she’s tired or hungry,” he chuckles. “Then she can be a little bit of a monster.”

Addy even became something of an online sensation when she was featured in the Orioles “Story Time” video series. The mop-topped cutie, dressed in dinosaur jammies, sat on her father’s lap us he started to read Lizzie the Lioness.

“Mama’s gonna read book!” she announced.

“Mama’s going to read book later,” Kline replied.

He subsequently got to the bottom of it:

“We found out that my wife would also sing her a couple of lullabies [after story time],” he says. “So I looked up the lyrics to some of her favorite lullabies [and sang them to her]. Ever since then, she’s had no problem saying Daddy Reads Books!”

Kline, who stays in touch with his teammates through video calls, has even managed to find some creative ways to stay in shape while cooped up at home.

“I’ve used Addy herself as gym equipment,” he says. “I’ll put her on my back to do some squats and pushups, just some core stuff. She has a field day with it.”

He’s also incorporated his lab-shepherd mix, Zoey, into the routine. In one video that he posted to Instagram, Kline does squats while holding the large, heavy dog, who dangles gamely. (He even added the hashtag: #NoGymNoProblem.) Kline says he was lucky to capture that moment on film.

“Ever since then, I can’t hold her for more than 20 seconds without her going ballistic on me,” he says.

As Kline waits to hear when MLB will start back up, he has been thinking a lot about his teammate Trey Mancini, who is undergoing treatment for colon cancer.

“I love the guy,” says Kline. “I always will. The biggest thing that [his teammates are] expressing to Trey is that we’re always with him. He’s not in this fight alone. He’s such a high-spirited young man. It’s incredible. Even with this devastating news, he’s still looking at the positives. I look forward to being able to see him again. Hopefully, when this is all said and done, we can be back to talking about Trey Mancini on the baseball field.”

It took seven years of determination, three different surgeries, and a journey littered with doubt, but Branden Kline, hometown baseball hero, finally made it to the majors two weeks ago. The often smiling, freckle-faced, Frederick native was called up from the minors on April 20 as the Orioles’ 26th man—they needed extra pitching help—for a day-night home doubleheader against the Minnesota Twins. And he threw two innings, one perfect, and one not, when he allowed two solo home runs in the nightcap, his big league debut.

While watching from the crowd, Kline’s mother, Linda, spoke in an emotional in-game interview with MASN about her son’s long road to this moment—from the “nosebleed” seats in the upper left-field deck at Camden Yards, where he sat as a boy with her, to throwing from the pitcher’s mound, now the center of attention, while wearing a black and orange Baltimore uniform with No. 52 and the family name on his back.

Kline, now 27, the Orioles second-round draft pick in 2012 (almost a generation ago in baseball terms) spoke earnestly in the locker room that day about his at times painful, and now cathartic tale. There was the constant stream of surgeries: in 2013, to repair a broken right fibula; in 2015, a Tommy John procedure to replace his right elbow ligament, and a platelet-rich plasma injection too; and in 2017 two more arthroscopic procedures on his throwing elbow.

He shared how he cried for probably 30 minutes after Gary Kendall, the manager of the Orioles’ Triple-A team in Norfolk, Virginia, told him last month the Orioles were calling him up. And how he got emotional again when sharing the news—finally good news!—with his wife, Sarah, and their 1-year-old daughter. (And he shared this amazing heartfelt Instagram post about the entire thing.)

It was storybook stuff. A local boy, a graduate from Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick, makes the roster of a pro team he grew up watching, and after much adversity. But the big-league stay was temporary. Kline was sent back to the minors after his debut, not even long enough to make a weekend of all the fun.

Fortunately for him, in this nascent stage of the Orioles’ rebuilding project, it didn’t take long for a recall. That happened seven days later, and in even shorter time, Kline was back on mound Wednesday night in Chicago, in another doubleheader.

This time he earned his first major league win in relief, by way of being the O’s pitcher of record when they went ahead 5-4 in the eighth inning on an RBI hits from outfielder Dwight Smith Jr. and second baseman Jonathan Villar.

Kline was great in the performance, throwing a 96 miles-per-hour fastball, allowing just one hit in two innings, and helping the O’s end a four-game losing streak.

In one of the replies to this tweet, a middle-school teacher from back home told Kline he was sharing his story with students as inspiration “that hard work and perseverance can help people achieve their dreams.” To which Kline responded, “Thank you Mr. Schill. Trying my best to set a good example.”

Kline’s story is, really, what this O’s season is all about. The Birds’ record is what it is: 11-21, which is probably better than a lot of prognosticators anticipated. The playoff hopes are what they are: slim to none. The roster makeup is what it is, too: a mostly young in baseball years patchwork group, with some out-of-place parts like Chris Davis (who, by the way, has hit .300 since busting his historic hitless slump on April 13), all playing under a first-year manager.

But the guy who grew up 45 minutes from Baltimore, and even pitched for the Orioles minor league in affiliate in Frederick last year during his first healthy season in four years, could care less about the circumstances. Same goes for the 20 or so friends and family that showed up to his big league debut, and the many more that are tracking every move of his tale.

“I’ve been through a lot,” Kline said prior to the season at Orioles FanFest. “A lot of ups, a lot of downs, but that’s life. It’s not really about what you’re going through. It’s how you respond.”