Cleveland – Spencer Turnbull’s 30-day rehab assignment is almost over.
The Tigers’ veteran starter is scheduled to make what is expected to be his final rehab start, coming off a neck injury, on Tuesday with Triple-A Toledo.
In a different time, in different circumstances, bringing Turnbull back to the big-league roster would be a no-brainer. This isn’t that time and the circumstances, at least viewing them from the outside, seem murky at best.
For one thing, Turnbull, coming back to competition this year after missing 19 months recovering from Tommy John surgery, has yet to return to form. He posted an ERA of 7.26 in his first seven starts and then on May 6, the club moved to option him back to Triple-A.
Turnbull, who was trying to pitch through severe pain in his neck, countered by saying he was injured. In the meantime, he changed agents, hiring Scott Boras. Subsequent tests were done on the neck and an injury was detected (neither the Tigers’ nor Turnbull have made the exact nature of that injury public).
On the basis of those tests the Tigers on May 12 rescinded the option and placed him on the 15-day injured list retroactive to May 7.
It was a tense situation and the relationship between player and club was if not broken, deeply bruised.
On top of that, though, and more germane to the issue, the rehab process has been slow. Turnbull made his first two starts at High-A West Michigan and in three starts at Toledo, he’s given up 11 runs and 17 hits in 12.2 innings with opponents hitting .333 with a .904 OPS.
In his most recent start, against Omaha, he was tagged for six runs in the first two innings but settled and pitched three scoreless after that.
“I was really happy with how he bounced back from a very difficult start against Omaha,” manager AJ Hinch said. “It would’ve been easy to concede the day, but he bounced back with some really good innings. That was encouraging.”
Still, he hasn’t been commanding his secondary pitches like he can and needs to. His velocity is slowly creeping back toward the mid-90s but that hasn’t been consistent. He only got two swing and misses in 25 swings by Triple-A hitters in his last outing.
He’s still, in other words, a far cry from the pitcher he was on May 18, 2021, when he pitched a no-hitter at Seattle.
“Our goal with him, No. 1, is health and he’s been healthy,” Hinch said. “He’s bounced back. It’s been a little more like a spring training for him to build himself back up. Quality-wise, we still want to push him to get better in a couple of areas – secondary command, getting into leverage counts.”
Is it realistic for everything to suddenly snap back into place on Tuesday?
If it doesn’t, what’s Plan B? Do the Tigers take Turnbull off the injured list and option him to Toledo? And for how long? They are governing innings for both rookie Reese Olson and second-year starter Alex Faedo. Do they give Turnbull a two or three more Triple-A starts to get right and call him back up?
There is so much to consider here. Turnbull’s rehab is officially over on Friday, Aug. 25, three days after his final rehab start on Tuesday. At that point, he will have accrued roughly 168 days of service time this season − four days short of what constitutes a full year in service time, which would be Turnbull’s fifth.
Five years of service time gives players the right to veto minor-league assignments. It would also mean Turnbull would have one year of team control remaining instead of two and he would be eligible for free agency in 2025.
If the Tigers option him to Toledo on or before Friday, his service time clock stops.
Whether that means anything to the Tigers or not, at this point, is hard to say. Certainly, if they were thinking about trading him this off-season, he would be more attractive to teams if he had two years of control left.
Or the Tigers could simply give him the extra time in Toledo to get back to form and let him use four or five starts in September to re-establish himself as a viable big-league starter and service time be damned.
The Tigers hold all the cards right now. Turnbull’s only path back to regaining some leverage in his career is to get back to doing what he did so promisingly well before the surgery − pitch.
chris.mccosky@detroitnews.com
X: @cmccosky
Tigers at Guardians
▶ First pitch: Doubleheader at 4:10 p.m. Friday, Progressive Field, Cleveland
▶ TV/radio: BSD/97.1
SCOUTING REPORT
GAME 1
▶ Tarik Skubal (2-2, 4.18), Tigers: He’s coming off a grinder of a start against the Red Sox. His stuff was good but the pesky Red Sox kept pecking away at him. He ended up allowing five runs (four earned) and seven hits in 5⅓ innings. The big blow was a three-run homer by left-handed swinging Triston Casas — the first homer Skubal had allowed in 58⅓ innings dating to July 8, 2022.
▶ Xzavion Curry (3-1, 3.39), Guardians: He’s been mostly used as a reliever or opener, but his last two outings have been five-inning starts, the last one against the Rays was rough (five runs in five innings). His hard-hit rate (47%) is in the bottom 5% in baseball. He throws mostly sliders and curves off a 93-mph fastball and doesn’t miss a lot of bats (16% strikeout rate).
GAME 2
▶ RHP Matt Manning (4-4, 4.60), Tigers: Against a lefty-stacked Red Sox lineup on Saturday, Manning went back to his fastball, throwing 51 four-seamers out 90 pitches to great success. He was spotting it to both sides, up and down, and he deftly mixed just enough sliders and curveballs to keep the Red Sox off balance. He allowed one run and two hits in 5⅓ innings.
▶ RHP Gavin Williams (1-3, 2.80), Guardians: His last three starts have been most impressive. Against Houston, Toronto and Tampa Bay, he allowed three runs total in 17 innings with 28 strikeouts, five walks and an opponent average of .172. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound rookie has an average velocity of 96 mph on his four-seam, which plays up with his 7-foot-5 extension. He mixes sliders and curveballs off the four-seam.