DETROIT — Before anyone judges where Spencer Turnbull is a month into his comeback season, remember where the Tigers right-hander was when he walked into Spring Training in mid-February and talked about what he’d learned in 16 months following Tommy John surgery. The first thing he mentioned was patience.
It doesn’t come easy for Turnbull, but after rehabbing in a weight room or on the back fields in Lakeland, Fla., day after day, he has learned to appreciate incremental progress and temporary defeat. It has helped him feel like he gained something from his career being interrupted just two weeks after throwing a no-hitter.
Six starts into Turnbull’s return, that patience is probably keeping him from one of those youthful outbursts that marked his early years.
Turnbull didn’t lose his temper because he didn’t lose his sight of where he was a year ago, or where he wants to be by the end of this year. He has learned to appreciate a well-executed slider because he knows what it’s like without it. He appreciates glimpses of velocity on his fastball after all the work he has put in to build it back up.
Just because a lot of pitchers undergo Tommy John surgery each year doesn’t make it any simpler. In case Turnbull might lose sight of that, he had fellow Tigers starter Tarik Skubal — himself a Tommy John surgery patient in college who fell from a potential early-round Draft pick in 2018 to the Tigers’ ninth-round selection in the recovery — reminding him on Sunday.
“I’m really hard on myself,” Turnbull said. “In some ways, I’m expecting to come back out and be in no-hitter form. But this is still the first chance I’ve had to build up innings. I didn’t have any outings last year to get some of that out of the way.
“Not trying to make excuses or anything. I’m just trying to be realistic with my expectations of myself and knowing that it’s getting there. … I just have to not look at the results. If I look at the results, I’ll get pretty [angry] and start breaking stuff.”
In lieu of results, Turnbull is looking at the process. His pregame warmup in the bullpen was his best so far. His first-inning sinker to Ryan Mountcastle came in at 96 mph, his hardest pitch this season. Turnbull’s slider was much improved. His decision-making was better.
“I feel like I took a step forward today,” Turnbull said.
The frustrations are generally physical. A 32-pitch second inning — extended in part by a Zach McKinstry error on a grounder to second base — sapped the adrenaline from a smooth 14-pitch opening frame. Back-to-back doubles leading off the third inning, including a hot grounder that third baseman Andy Ibáñez couldn’t knock down, led to another extended frame.
A fourth-inning fastball that was supposed to be at the top of the strike zone instead landed in the middle for Adam Frazier to crush to right for a solo homer. A two-out walk to Cedric Mullins ensured that would be Turnbull’s last inning, despite retiring Adley Rutschman on the next pitch.
“It’s definitely a little bit labor intensive,” Turnbull said. “I feel like before surgery, I could’ve handled that a lot easier. Now, I’m still kind of getting extended. Still [have] to make pitches, still [have] to keep my pitch count down and get ahead of guys better. I don’t think it was as much mentality or trying to nibble or pitching around guys. I think it was more misfires.”
The good stretches are sporadic. The rougher stretches have been longer.
“He will show flashes,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “Nothing that imploded, which, I guess, is the positive sign, but certainly labor intensive.”
The Tigers are in the patience business with starting pitchers for the foreseeable future. If they can get Turnbull settled in around midseason, they can turn their attention to Skubal, who hasn’t pitched since flexor tendon surgery last August. Casey Mize should be back from Tommy John surgery for next season, if not the end of this year.
At the end of this process, at some point, is a pretty impressive rotation. Before that is a lot of patience.
“I was hoping it would be a little bit of an easier process than it is,” Turnbull said. “But life isn’t easy.”