Prince George product Jared Young is into the home stretch of his first season with the Tennessee Smokies.
The Smokies are 49-65 on the season and the AA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.
Young is batting .233 with five home runs and 46 RBI’s and while his offensive numbers may not be quite up to his standard, he told MyPGNow.com it’s been a great experience up to this point.
“It’s a great league. It’s tough but the challenges are good and our team is reacting to them pretty well, we had some tough stretches for a while but won a couple of our last series and it’s going to be nice to be at home for a couple of weeks.”
“I’m not too pleased with them this year (his offensive numbers) that’s for sure as I expected them to be a little higher and we’ve got one month to clean that up.”
As for his approach to bump up his offensive prowess, the 24-year-old admits you have to stay true to who you are as a player when things aren’t going your way.
“I just think you have to stay with who you are more than anything and when you go about looking for results in the wrong way and you try something that’s not quite you or just not being true to who you are as a baseball player, you’ll often find yourself in some tough spots.”
ICYMI: Smokies and M-Braves Split Season Finaleshttps://t.co/hJwWVqdi32
— Tennessee Smokies (@smokiesbaseball) August 6, 2019
Young and his teammates just completed a stretch of 19 games in 19 days but wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’ve been doing this for three years now in professional baseball and it’s awesome, you get to play every day and you get to do what you love so it’s pretty tough to beat.”
He looks to finish the season strong as the calendar inches closer to September.
“We’ve got a month to go, we really want to win some games and win every series hopefully for the rest of the season as that would put a stamp on my first season in double-A.”
The Smokies begin a 10-game homestand tonight (Wednesday) against the 67-47 Biloxi Shuckers who are the AA affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers.