Baseball: Injury will prevent Edward Little’s Drew Smith from throwing this season

Hard-throwing Edward Little senior Drew Smith has been working on honing the craft of pitching, and hoped to end his high school career with his best season on the mound yet.

Instead, the University of Connecticut commit will be limited to hitting for the Red Eddies this season due to an elbow injury.

Edward Little coach Dave Jordan confirmed the news to the Sun Journal on Tuesday, after consulting with Smith’s family.

“There’s been a lot of rumors and speculation that’s been around this spring,” Jordan said. “And talking with his parents, they’re just working through the process right now of, Drew does have an injury that they’re working on in the elbow area, and they’re working with his medical team and with UConn in terms of coming up with the best plan of action for him at this point. And until then they’re just hoping for some privacy in terms of for them to kind of figure out exactly what the best course of action is. But he’s not going to throw in the field or pitch for the high school this year, I’d say. That’s a definite. So he’ll just be able to play as a designated hitter.”

The nature and severity of Smith’s elbow injury are still being evaluated, and it is not yet known if surgery will be required.

Smith noticed tenderness while training before the season, which prompted him to have his elbow examined.

“Unfortunately, sometimes these things happen, and it wasn’t anything ill-advised, or anything that wasn’t part of what he should have been doing leading up to the season,” Jordan said.

Jordan said that Smith has always been conscientious of taking care of his arm, and his body, year-round.

“He’s had some fantastic coaches and mentors that could give him information, but he also is a fantastic student of the game,” Jordan said, “and I would say he knows more about the arm, the anatomy of the arm, the pitching process, all the drills to condition his body — not just arm-wise, but core-wise and everything like that.”

Smith’s injury has left Edward Little without its most experienced pitcher but also without its most experienced first baseman.

The senior has turned his focus to hitting and helping the Red Eddies in any way that he can.

“He’s been a tremendous leader, he’s working hard to get his swing down to help that way as best he can,” Jordan said. “But also just being a great mentor to our younger guys and a leader for his classmates and all those younger guys. It’s been really great seeing how he’s been able to deal with such a difficult blow — with all the effort that he’s put in leading up to this year, it has really been a four-year process for him, in terms of learning the game, implementing a lot of the strategies that he’s learned, and doing everything to the T.”