Ex-Zag Troy Johnston has his hooks into Marlins with solid play after July debut

ARLINGTON, Texas – Last fall, Troy Johnston figured his baseball career was nearly over.

The former Gonzaga standout had played five years in the minors after the Marlins drafted him in the 17th round in 2019. Johnston had been their Minor League Player of the Year in 2023 only to see the organization leave him unprotected for the Rule 5 Draft in both 2023 and 2024.

So he figured he’d have his baseball farewell in the Dominican Winter League. However, those 45 games with the Toros were a godsend for Johnston, now 28 – serving as a nice springboard for his big-league debut this July.

“I was pretty much done. I was going to do something else,” Johnston said during a Miami road trip to Texas last weekend. “I thought going to the Dominican was my last stop, my last hurrah. For a lot of guys, that is their last hurrah. I went down there, had a blast and learned to love baseball again. From there, it really took off into how I was going to approach that next year and jolted me into the position I’m in now.”

After a productive spring, Johnston returned to Triple-A Jacksonville and played 84 games for the Jumbo Shrimp before getting summoned to the big leagues in late July. He debuted on July 29 at St. Louis and went 1-for-2 with a run scored against the Cardinals. His first big-league homer came on Aug. 16 at Fenway Park against the Red Sox.

Entering Tuesday, he’s hitting .277 with four homers, 13 RBIs, and a .766 OPS in 39 games.

“It’s been great,” Johnston said of his time in the majors thus far. “It means all the preparation and struggle I went through in the minors, even college, was worth it. Being here and having my goal reached of getting to the big leagues, it’s such a blessing.”

However, for Johnston, a Zag between 2017 and 2019 whose parents call Spokane home, those years at Gonzaga helped lay the foundation for his subsequent success in baseball.

“So, truly I did not know that professional baseball was going to be an option for me, even when I was at Gonzaga,” he said. “I went to Gonzaga because I thought I’d have a fantastic education. It’s a great spot and my family lives in Spokane. It’s an awesome area.

“I ended up being pretty good at Gonzaga, got drafted in the 17th round and didn’t think professional baseball was an option. Once I got into professional baseball, I didn’t think the big leagues were an option. I told my wife after my first two years, I’m a 17th -rounder, don’t get used to (the baseball life), I’ll probably do something else. And then right about 2022 or 2023, I realized that maybe going to the big leagues might be an option. That was my goal for the last two to three years to get to the big leagues and I reached it.”

On Sept. 13, Johnston also accomplished a first in Marlins history when he hit the second of his two home runs that afternoon in the 11th inning, a two-run walk-off blast that gave Miami a 6-4 win against visiting Detroit at loanDepot Park – becoming the first Marlin to have a walk-off homer be part of his first career multihomer game.

“That was pretty exciting, especially when it left the bat,” he said. “I feel like I had a pretty good dismount, but it was so exciting just to be able to help the team win. I was struggling for a little bit at that point, so it was nice to see something going my way, especially in a big spot like that.”

And for his manager, Clayton McCullouch, who is in his first year as a big-league skipper with the Marlins, that two-home -run game was a great example of the offensive progression Johnston has shown since being promoted.

“Once Troy had three, four, five games under his belt, the at-bat quality really has improved. We’ve seen him just get into much better counts,” McCullouch said. “He’s maintained his aggressiveness, but he’s been much more selective with what he’s going at, and we’ve seen the performance follow suit.”

When he debuted against the Cardinals, Johnston became the 29th Gonzaga product to reach the show, a contingent that includes his former roommate Brett Harris (A’s) and Casey Legumina (Mariners).

“ (Us reaching the show) just means that we worked hard and came from a college that deserves more big leaguers than they have,” Johnston said. “They run a great, fantastic program at Gonzaga and I can’t speak enough nice things about them.

“They do have a lot of Zags that are coming up, especially in the minor leagues that are soon to be joining us in the big leagues – Gabriel Hughes (Rockies organization), Quinn Kepner (with Johnston’s former team, Jacksonville), guys like that. Honestly, being part of that small fraternity just means again, it was all worth it.”

Of course, when he first came up, Johnston had a rookie duty assigned to him and like Legumina, who has served as a tour guide on Seattle’s road trips this season, Johnston’s rookie rite of passage was unique.

“My rookie role, it was taken over by Graham Pauley, but I was in charge of the cribbage board,” Johnston said. “My grandma will love this when it comes out in Spokane because she was the one who taught me cribbage when I was about six. She’s the one that taught me how to win in cribbage any way you can. (Cribbage is) a big thing in the Marlins clubhouse.”

Naturally, he credits his wife, Haleigh, and family for never losing faith in him one day realizing his dream of becoming a big leaguer.

“I wouldn’t have been able to make it without my family, even the financial support, the mental support, being there through everything, the ups, the downs,” he said. “They pushed me to be who I am and to be the best every single day not only to be a good baseball player but be a good person and make sure that baseball is my job, it’s not who I am. To take that into my everyday life and make sure that my wife and my family, they all know that I’m here for them no matter what, baseball is not going to come home. Baseball is not going to affect me because truly it is just my job.”

Stephen Hunt is a freelance writer based in Frisco, Texas.