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Turocy leads Zips on diamond, eyes draft
By Joe Scalzo
akron
With his teammates battling a billowing tarp and the snow occasionally blowing in from right field, Akron junior Drew Turocy took a seat on a dugout bench Tuesday afternoon, reflecting on his past while answering the obvious questions about his future.
Two years ago, the Canfield High graduate got to know those benches well, something that had never happened before. As a talented athlete in a family full of them, Turocy usually saw the game from three positions: the plate, the outfield and the mound.
Then, 14 games into his freshman year, he injured his elbow. Tommy John surgery — a procedure where his elbow ligament was replaced by a tendon elsewhere in the body —wiped out that season and the next.
“I missed the game a lot,” Turocy said following a 5-0 win over Youngstown State. “But what it did was make me watch the game from a different perspective.
“I never had to step away from the game for a whole year, year-and-a-half before. In the long run, it helped me out because I picked up some things from pitchers and hitters and I learned a lot from it.”
To protect the elbow, his coaches moved him from the starting rotation to the bullpen last season, although he still started every game in the outfield. He regained his swing, batting .358 with a school-record 95 hits. Pitching was a different story. He went 1-3 with a 7.27 ERA in just 26 innings.
After the season, he and his coaches decided he should focus on the outfield full-time and he’s only gotten better, batting .385 this spring with a terrific OPS (on base plus slugging percentage) of .990. No other Zip regular is batting over .247 and he leads the team in nearly every offensive category.
He’s been the biggest bright spot in a forgettable year for the Zips (6-20).
“I was pretty successful last year and I worked on a lot of things in the offseason to improve,” Turocy said. “I’ve put in a lot of hard work so I can play at the next level, which is a goal of mine.
“But, obviously, you’ve got to keep working on a daily basis.”
Turocy’s older brother, Frank, was a standout pitcher for the Zips — Frank is now married and works as an accountant in downtown Akron — and his younger brother, Jared, is a part-time starter as a sophomore. He also has an older sister, Megan, and a younger brother, Derek, who is still in high school.
All of them are terrific athletes, although Turocy may end up going the furthest in his career. He’s gotten letters from about a dozen major league teams and plans to start his pro career this summer, provided he’s drafted high enough.
“It has to be the right situation,” he said. “My parents [Frank and Marcia] have been very supportive of whatever I do and always told me if the opportunity comes knocking, you can always come back and finish school.”
Turocy is on track to graduate with a marketing management degree in December, although June’s draft might interfere with those plans.
A speedy center fielder, Turocy also has the frame (6-foot-3, 185) scouts love, particularly since he should add more muscle over the next few years. There were scouts at Wednesday’s game — “They’re always floating around with video cameras and stopwatches, so it gets a little nerve-wracking at times,” he said — but Turocy said he tries to focus on what’s going on inside the diamond, not outside.
“I just try to focus on the game,” he said. “Whatever happens, I play for this team right here and I try to win every day.”
He succeeded on Wednesday, going 1-for-4 with a run scored, but the Zips got plenty of help from YSU. The Penguins (6-19) committed two errors, hit three batters, walked four others, threw a wild pitch and had three passed balls.
Greg Bissinger was one of YSU’s few bright spots, going 2-for-4.
“We need Greg to do well in the DH [designated hitter] spot and he’s starting to give us what we were thinking all along,” said YSU coach Rich Pasquale. “We were talking about having good approaches and he’s starting to do that and it carried into today.”
The rest of the Penguins managed just three hits — all singles.
“We need to have a better approach with everything come Friday or it’s going to be a sweep for Butler,” Pasquale said.