Lakeland, Fla. — Wednesday was the first official workout for pitchers and catchers, and most of the players were already out on the field waiting for the stretching and drill work to start, when Spencer Turnbull finally popped out of the clubhouse.
He hasn’t thrown a competitive pitch since June 4, 2021, hasn’t been around the team much at all since he had Tommy John surgery on July 29, 2021. But, on his first official day back after being gone nearly 20 months, the leisurely southern gentleman was the second-to-last player on the field.
“Just trying to be even-keel,” he said. “Not trying to get ahead of myself for day one. But, I am excited to be back, for sure. Ready to go.”
If you’ve forgotten, Turnbull threw a no-hitter in Seattle just a couple of weeks before his forearm and elbow started barking. He seemed on the verge of a breakout season. As he made his slow way across the backfields at Joker Marchant Stadium Wednesday, it couldn’t have been lost on him how things have changed.
It remains to be seen how much he’s changed as a pitcher. But, he knows precisely how these last 20 months have changed him as a man.
“Just being forced to learn patience,” said Turnbull, who is 30 years old now. “Being forced to learn a little bit more about who I am outside of baseball. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your talent and the things you can do, then when it’s taken away from you for a while, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘All right, who am I as a person outside of baseball?’”
Turnbull admitted he didn’t immediately like the answer.
“You’re quickly faced with a lot more of your shortcomings,” he said. “There were things that came out, and I was like, ‘OK, I can work on a few things and become a better man.’”
He moved his home base from Nashville to Charlotte and spent a lot of time shuttling back and forth between North Carolina and Lakeland. The isolation that injured players feel, Turnbull can attest, is real.
“You get depressed,” he said. “You stay anxious and fearful a lot. I had to battle a lot of that the last year and a half. I learned a lot about myself. There was a lot of therapy, a lot of workouts.”
Coming up through the Tigers’ system and even before that, when he pitched at Alabama, baseball was something Turnbull was uniquely good at. It wasn’t something he necessarily loved. Until it was taken away.
“Yeah, it’s definitely made me miss the game more than I ever have, being away from it for that long,” he said. “If there was ever a point where you were taking it for granted at all, you quickly get that itch and that fire back. You just miss it so much.
“It gets lonely sometimes. Like, I miss the guys. I miss competing. It’s such a big part of your life for so long.”
His rehabilitation process was slow, slower than what is considered normal. And at every step, a whole battery of worries rolled through his head. Will I still be durable? How will the recovery be between starts? Will the pain ever go away? Will I have the same stuff, the same power, the same movement on my pitches?
Happily, as he prepares to throw his first official bullpen on Friday, he’s gotten positive answers to those questions.
“My stuff is there right now,” he said. “I’m sure the velocity will start ticking back up as we get the adrenaline rush again. But, I’ve been at 92 mph in my bullpens and all my pitches feel good. The movement, as soon as I put my cleats back on and got in the dirt, my pitch shapes got sharper.
“All the cut and sink is back. The curveball feels better and the changeup feels better. The slider is about where it was.”
That’s encouraging news for the Tigers. Before the injury, his four-seam sat between 94-95 mph with above-average ride (nearly 2,500 rpm of spin). He had almost uncontrollable movement with his two-seam fastball (94 mph) and was getting a 37.6% swing-and-miss rate with his slider.
“He’s in a great place,” manager AJ Hinch said of Turnbull. “I saw him throw a bullpen the other day and play catch. He looks really good. He looks noticeably stronger. I don’t see any issues going forward.”
Neither does Turnbull.
“Hopefully, there will be no limitations,” he said. “We will see how the spring goes. AJ said he has a few extra rest days in there for me. I definitely have to pace myself a little bit here early. I don’t want to overdo it trying to throw a whole season in one bullpen. I’ve been throwing pretty much all offseason, so I’m just doing my normal build-up phase with just a little extra work that I normally wouldn’t have for spring training.
“But, I feel good. Glad to be back.”
Twitter: @cmccosky