The box score shows that Kyle Snyder, as a starting pitcher, threw just two innings on the first Friday night of April. He gave up three hits and one run while facing eight batters.

While that might not sound like a good outing, the former UNC baseball star could not have been more pleased. It signaled the next step in what could be a path to the major leagues, something he hopes will happen as soon as this year. But there is a long way to go.

The appearance, for the host Class A Wilmington (Del.) Blue Rocks of the Carolina League against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, represented his first outing in a regular-season professional game in nearly two years.

It was also just his third game since the end of the 1999 season for Snyder, who missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery on Sept. 7, 2000.

"It feels good. It feels good to be back playing again," Snyder, 24, a first-round pick of the Kansas City Royals out of Chapel Hill three years ago, said a few days later. "Just to be out competing again is a special feeling."

He was on a strict pitch count of 35 to 40 in his first outing, and he said he threw 37 offerings. That was to go up to 45 to 55 in his second start and to around 70 in May.

Bob Hegman, the senior director of minor league operations for the Royals, said he hopes the pitch count is up to around 85 in June.

"He hasn't competed in (nearly) two years. We are going to bring him along slowly," said Hegman, speaking from his office in Kansas City on April 10. "We are really pleased. The early reports are very good."

Snyder, on the Royals' 40-man roster, is still considered among the top 10 prospects in the Kansas City system by Baseball America. He was the seventh overall pick in 1999.

"He has real good stuff," said Wilmington pitching coach Bill Slack, 68, who lives in Winston-Salem. "He is throwing around 92 or 93 (miles per hour) right now. There is nothing wrong with his arm."

Slack, in his 49th year of baseball, managed and owned Winston-Salem of the Carolina League in the 1970s and was the pitching coach of the Durham Bulls in 1994-95 and 1997 in the same league.

He said this month that Snyder fields his position very well and has great agility for a pitcher who is 6-foot-8, and added that his background with basketball, swimming and golf in high school aids his fielding ability.

"He has no problems with his curveball. He has no problems with his changeup," Slack said. "He is very rigid with his fastball. He needs to loosen up (on his delivery) with his fastball. He will throw harder."

Snyder's first appearance this month also had its share of irony. He took the mound April 6 at Judy Johnson Field at Frawley Stadium in Wilmington, on the same spot where he "blew out his elbow" on the fourth pitch of his appearance for the Blue Rocks on Aug. 27, 2000.

Snyder, unsure of what happened, said he threw a fifth pitch before leaving the game. Until earlier this month that had been the last time he pitched in a regular-season contest.

He had enrolled at UNC after being taken in the 27th round of the 1996 June draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Snyder was named the top prospect in the amateur Cape Cod League in the summer of 1998.

A Florida native, Snyder was 7-5 with a 3.82 earned-run average in 15 starts as a junior at UNC, where he fanned 102 batters in 96.2 innings in 1999. He majored in exercise and sports science, and has one more semester left to get his degree.

After signing with the Royals in '99, he reported to the Northwest League and was named the top prospect in the there in 1999. He was 1-0 with a 4.13 ERA in seven games that season with Spokane.

He pitched in the Florida Instructional League after his first season. But he threw in only two games, one in the Gulf Coast League and one in Wilmington, in 2000 after experiencing elbow soreness. He had a transfer of the ulnar nerve in his right elbow, and during that rehab start he tore his ulnar collateral ligament.

Snyder then had Tommy John surgery performed by Dr. James Andrews on Sept. 7, 2000.

He reported to a Royals' minicamp in Kansas City in January, 2001, and was supposed to start throwing as part of his post-operative rehab.

"My elbow was still pretty tender at five months post-operation," Snyder said.

So the Royals pushed back his throwing rehab to last February, during spring training in Florida. He gradually began with short tosses and worked his way up to throwing the ball 250 feet.

Snyder got on the mound last June and threw in the bullpen until August in Florida. The Royals considered sending him to Wilmington at the end of last season, but a tender elbow put those plans on hold.

Instead, the Royals, sent him to Instructional League in Florida last fall and then to the Arizona Fall League, which annually attracts some of the top prospects in the game.

"Arizona was great for me to compete at that level and have some success," Snyder said. "It felt good. It restored some confidence."

In four starts in the AFL he was 0-1 in five innings, and allowed three hits, two earned runs and two walks with two strikeouts.

Snyder reported to spring training this season and said he pitched in three games with the major league team: in a B game against the Cleveland Indians, against the New York Mets and in an intrasquad game with the Royals. He said some of the hitters that he faced in spring training included Jeromy Burnitz, Todd Dunwoody and John Valentin.

Snyder said the Royals considered sending him to Class AA to begin this season, but he ended up back in Wilmington. Snyder is pitching again for veteran Wilmington manager Jeff Garber, a former minor leaguer in the Kansas City system.

"I like him a lot. He's a disciplinarian, but it's needed at the Class A level because there are a lot of young guys," Snyder said of Garber.

Snyder had not met pitching coach Slack until this spring, but quickly learned of their North Carolina ties. Slack has friends who scouted Snyder when he pitched for the Tar Heels, Snyder said.

Slack has helped several pitchers make it to the big leagues. Among those are Al Nipper, the pitching coach for Kansas City, and two former Wilmington pitching coaches, Steve Crawford and Juan Agosto.

Now Snyder hopes to add his name to the list, though he realizes it will be a long climb.

"I just want to take a step at a time and get my work in and just build up my pitch count," he said.

Said Hegman: "There is no timetable. It is a lot more important that he is healthy. You can't say where he will go" later this season if he does well.

But Snyder is clear that he wants to make the majors soon.

"Absolutely. I would like to prove to [the Royals] that my ability to pitch at that level is not too far off," he said. "They are grooming me to be a starter."

So that two-inning start in early April does not look so bad after all.

Through April 22, Snyder had started four games, pitching 10 2/3 innings. He had compiled an 0-1 record and a 2.53 ERA. Snyder allowed 10 hits, six runs (three of them earned) and zero home runs. He hit two batters, uncorked two wild pitches, walked five, and was tied for the team lead with 14 strikeouts. Opponents were hitting .238 against him.