Turgeon Getting to Work

Erik Turgeon, drafted in the 25th round out of the University of Connecticut, entered the organization with comparatively less skills and a shorter history as a pitcher than his peers. His objective during his first season was to add depth to his game and build his knowledge as to what it takes to succeed as a pitcher at the next level.

[FREE PREVIEW OF PREMIUM CONTENT]

Erik Turgeon did not quite know what to expect when the Mets selected him last June, but he knew his future would be on the mound. To what effectiveness, however, was to be determined.

The 21-year-old right-hander spent little time harnessing his pitching prowess as he was mainly used as a one-inning reliever in college. Additionally, he owned a marginal repertoire that displayed little more than a fastball. Nonetheless, Turgeon arrived to his first assignment in Kingsport ready to expand his repertoire and lay his foundation as a pitcher.

First things first, when he arrived in Kingsport, Turgeon got right to work on establishing a feel for secondary pitches and the confidence to throw them.

“Since I got here, I’ve been working on a changeup, curveball and a slider. With those four pitches, if I can throw three or four of them for strikes, it makes my job a lot easier,” he said.

“But the main thing with these pitches is having the confidence to throw them. If I don’t have confidence things are going to get a lot tougher and the quality of my pitches will suffer.”

His work really took off upon his arrival in Brooklyn after seven appearances and 6.2 innings pitched with the K-Mets. In Brooklyn, pitching coach Hector Berrios built a plan for Turgeon which the hurler stuck with and helped put together a consistent effort with the Cyclones. In 11 games, Turgeon went 0-1 with a 2.76 ERA with 23 strikeouts and five walks in 16.1 innings pitched.

“I’ve had a great opportunity to build plans for every time I got out there, and if I stick to those plans 99 percent of the time I should be fine. I’m able to pitch inside now, I’m getting a good rhythm to mix my pitches and now I’m paying a lot more attention to the hitters than I ever did,” he explained.

“For now, I’m sticking to the plan. If I have a bad outing, I can’t dwell on it. I just have to come back the next day and fix the mistakes or improve on the things I did well. As long as I have that attitude, I think I’ll stay solid in my role.”

Next week, Turgeon will head to the fall Instructional League where it will be more of the same as he builds on what he has done so far. With just 23 innings pitched this season, he is just hungry for more time on the mound.

“Instructs will be really good for me to go to. I really haven’t had that much time to pitch so it will give me a really good opportunity to work on my breaking pitches and my off-speed pitches. I’m really just looking forward to working on everything even more than the guys who’ve been pitching their whole life. I know I have a lot of stuff to fine tune and hopefully I’ll learn even more,” he closed.