Josh Jung had an encouraging finish to the 2022 baseball season, just by virtue of making his Major League debut in September, launching a home run in his first plate appearance for the Texas Rangers and going deep four more times in the final month.

His goals for 2023 begin with something simpler: Have a trouble-free offseason and spring training so he can be in the lineup on Opening Day.

The former Texas Tech all-American doesn't take that for granted given that his 2021 season didn't start until mid-June after he underwent surgery for a stress fracture in his foot and his 2022 season didn't get under way until late July after he underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.

"Gosh, get me some bubble wrap, please," Jung said jokingly. "But yes, can I please go through a spring training without getting hurt. That's the big thing. ... It's just making sure I come into February healthy and I stay healthy."

The Rangers are ready for the 24-year-old Jung to take over third base for the next several years. After being the No. 8 overall pick in the 2019 draft, Jung batted .311 over 602 minor-league at-bats with a .919 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.

In his 26-game Rangers debut, he batted .204 with five home runs and 14 runs batted in, finally having a chance to get his feet on the ground as a Major Leaguer.

"That's all it was," he said, "because I wasn't even supposed to play. So to be able to come back, get a month in Triple A and get a month in the big leagues was just like a blessing in disguise. I had some really good moments, and I had a lot of really bad moments.

"But really it was just kind of like a kickstart for me to get a feel of what it's like every day in the big leagues and then come into the off-season with stuff I really want to lock in on and focus on coming into next season."

Jung made the comments Friday after a meet-and-greet appearance at Knocksville Baseball + Softball Training Facility in Lubbock.

Despite not hitting for much average last season, Jung's big moments showed why he's been ranked among baseball's top 100 prospects since shortly after he left Tech. In his Sept. 9 debut, the first time he stepped to the plate at Globe Life Field, he homered to left-center off Blue Jays' righthander Ross Stripling, a former All-Star.

Did he float around the bases?

"I wasn't even in my body," Jung said. "Truly, it was just so special. When I hit it, I was just like, 'Whoa.' I hadn't hit anything in Triple A for about a week or two weeks, so when I hit it, I was like, 'Oh, that's what contact feels like again.' ... It was just an unbelievable moment."

He had two homers and five RBI on Sept. 27 at Seattle, accounting for all the runs in a 5-0 Rangers victory. One of those homers came off 2021 Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray. He also homered in Tampa Bay and in Miami.

"There were just spurts, right?" he said. "There were spurts of what I can do, and then there were a lot of moments of, 'Gosh, who is this guy?' But that was just awesome. Seattle was amazing. Great field. Might be one of my favorites to play at so far on the journey."

As for the pitcher he faced with the nastiest stuff, that was Yankees righthander Luis Severino. On Oct. 3, in the last series of the season in Arlington, Severino no-hit the Rangers for seven innings in a 3-1 Yankees victory. He struck out seven, twice getting Jung swinging.

"I could see it," Jung said. "I knew where I wanted to swing at it. I just couldn't hit it, and it was just gross.

"Facing the Cy Young guys, too — Gerrit Cole, Robbie Ray — it's all as advertised. It's all good stuff. Everybody's got good stuff. But whatever he (Severino) ate for breakfast that day, it was like, 'Wow, he's got a little extra today, and it's nasty.' "

The Rangers just signed a pitcher with nasty stuff, rocking the baseball world before the winter meetings when they landed two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom on a five-year, $185 million contract. In nine seasons with the New York Mets, the 34-year-old righthander has a career earned-run average of 2.52 and a career strikeout rate of 11 per nine innings.

The news broke on Dec. 3 and had Rangers phones, Jung's included, buzzing.

"Everybody was pumped. The whole squad was pumped," Jung said. "It was really cool. They put him in our group (text) message, and it was even cooler. Especially because a lot of us are a little younger, so you grow up kind of idolizing these guys. Now they're on your team, and it's like, 'Oh, yeah. Let's go.' It's so cool.

"We got (free-agent lefthander Andrew) Heaney as well, so we're adding to our pitching staff. I think trying to put a complete team together is what our front office is trying to do, and I think we're pretty much right there in the right direction."

Now Jung wants to be on the infield behind them come February and March. To do that, he needs to shake the injury misfortunes that hit him the past two off-seasons. He hurt his shoulder last February, on his first day working out in Arizona, on his last set in the weight room. Doing an incline bench press, he lowered the bar too far with too heavy a load, he believes, "and when I went to push up," he said, "it kind of got stuck on me."

"I've done the same lift hundreds of times," he said, "and nothing's ever happened."

Now the objective is to make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen again.

"I think we're just taking extra precautions in the weight room and doing all different kinds of stuff to prevent injury," he said. "Build my shoulder back up, but also, what can we do to prevent other stuff? Whether nutrition or seeing different specialists to help with everything."

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: For the long haul: Josh Jung aims for full 2023 season after two injury-plagued years