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RailRiders OF Billy McKinney: 5 things you might not know about me

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Trout program provides lessons in and out of classroom

<p>Bobby Mitchell described Brandon Drury perfectly.</p><p>The third baseman is a &#8220;big leaguer&#8221; who just happens to play for the RailRiders. And Drury&#8217;s season has backed up the RailRiders manager&#8217;s description up.</p><p>The 25-year-old has been on base in 36 of the 37 games he&#8217;s played for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, heading into Saturday night&#8217;s tilt in Syracuse. His .344 batting average, paired with a triple, three home runs and 20 RBI, is good enough to place him fifth in the recent update of fan voting for the International League All-Star team.</p><p>Batting in the three hole for the RailRiders on a daily basis, he&#8217;s exactly what this team has needed to turn things around, helping the squad win six of their last eight games.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a big leaguer, you know? Just happens to be with us,&#8221; Mitchell said. &#8220;He can play for a lot of teams, obviously, and even ours if they needed him.</p><p>&#8220;He had a little setback with the issue he had and now he&#8217;s come right through it. He&#8217;s getting treatment with it and it&#8217;s really helping and he said he&#8217;s the best he&#8217;s felt in a long time.&#8221;</p><p>Drury had been dealing with severe migranes and blurred vision due to an irriated tendon in his neck that put him on the disabled list early in the season.</p><p>Drury concurred with Mitchell. He&#8217;s feeling &#8220;really good.&#8221;</p><p>While he wouldn&#8217;t say whether or not his vision is still blurry, he did divulge that he&#8217;s no longer wearing the night-time goggles, which he used briefly a couple homestands ago, and his visits to the doctor for treatment are far less frequent these days.</p><p>&#8220;I feel good, ready to go,&#8221; Drury said. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t really been getting too much treatment. We thought it was smart since I&#8217;ve been feeling a lot better, to keep it rolling.&#8221;</p><p>But despite his red-hot play, Drury still believes there&#8217;s more room left in the tank.</p><p>Drury&#8217;s season-low in the minor leagues for doubles during the last few seasons has been 40, which was his mark in 130 games in 2015. The third baseman currently has 10.</p><p>At the same time, his strikeout rate is slightly higher than his career average this season. He&#8217;s struck out 45 times, through all levels, while his career-high, which is from 2017, is 103.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m taking every at-bat with the intent to drive the ball and have a good at-bat,&#8221; Drury said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been feeling pretty good. I still feel like I have room for improvement as far as certain types of numbers getting better, but I feel solid and I feel like I&#8217;ve been having good at-bats helping the team.&#8221;</p><p>However, Drury may have just added an ace up his sleeve.</p><p>He played first base for the first time since 2016 in the nightcap of Tuesday&#8217;s game against Rochester. It was just the second time Drury played the position since his Single-A days in 2012.</p><p>Mitchell did pump the brakes after the game, however, clarifying that it&#8217;s &#8220;something we&#8217;re going to try to do periodically to get him some work over there in case (the Yankees) need him in an emergency or something.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s an athlete, though,&#8221; Mitchell said. &#8220;There&#8217;s some little things he needs to probably work on and learn, but fielding the ball and doing the other stuff, it&#8217;s almost like playing third, really, with no throws.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;d worry if he wasn&#8217;t that athletic because he hasn&#8217;t played there in so long, but he seemed really comfortable. He seemed really comfortable over there tonight, which is a credit to him, really &#8212; his confidence.&#8221;</p><p>That confidence has been one of the things about Drury that has impressed the RailRiders manager the most.</p><p>After playing in at least 130 games each of the last two seasons for the Arizona Diamondbacks, including 20 games in 2015, and to get relegated to Triple-A due to the hot play of Miguel Andujar while he was on the disable list, Drury has put aside the outside noise and continued to play well.</p><p>Mitchell even went so far as to describe Drury&#8217;s play as &#8220;inspirational.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It says a lot about his character as a person, his perseverance as a player, his ability to put that aside and still have, obviously, disappointment, but still have the focus on being a big leaguer here so he can go up and help us or help somebody else, maybe,&#8221; Mitchell said. &#8220;He&#8217;s definitely a big asset for our organization, for sure. He&#8217;s shown some leadership here. To go out there and play as hard as he does is inspirational to everybody.&#8221;</p><p>At the end of the day, Drury wants to be with the New York Yankees. And every day that desire to get back to New York drives him to get better.</p><p>Deep down, he knows he can help improve the contending Yankees and that wearing pinstripes is where he belongs.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m hungry. I&#8217;m on a mission to get back and go tear it up and help the team win a World Series,&#8221; Drury said. &#8220;Just knowing what I can do and how much I can help the team is just driving me, and I really want to go do it.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Ever since his demotion to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, third baseman Brandon Drury has worked hard to rejoin the New York Yankees. The 25-year-old has reached base safely in 36 of his 37 with the RailRiders. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/web1_TTL061718RailRidersSUNDAY_1-1-1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Ever since his demotion to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, third baseman Brandon Drury has worked hard to rejoin the New York Yankees. The 25-year-old has reached base safely in 36 of his 37 with the RailRiders. </caption0><photoCredit0>Bill Tarutis file photo | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Drury has reached base in XX of XX Triple-A games</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By DJ Eberle</p><p>djeberle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach DJ Eberle at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @ByDJEberle</p></shirttailMeta></div>

RailRiders’ Mitchell: Drury’s ‘a big leaguer’ who ‘just happens to be with us’