only four players have produced a higher batting average<\/a> (Luis Arraez, Freddie Freeman, Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez). That is one measurement of consistency.<\/p>\nBut Turner, who turns 33 in June, is signed through the 2033 season. He is making $27 million a year. He is clear-eyed about his place in all of this. He wants to hit at least .300 every year. It\u2019s why he is upset by the season\u2019s first seven weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting better,\u201d Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said Tuesday. \u201cThat\u2019s the thing about Trea, you know he\u2019s going to hit. And when he\u2019s struggling, obviously, he\u2019s not happy about it. He\u2019s working. Anytime guys keep working, and they have ability, it\u2019s going to happen, right? If he wasn\u2019t hitting and not working, it\u2019s different. It\u2019s just believing that when you\u2019re not going good, you can work and stay with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, to Turner, it\u2019s more than that.<\/p>\n
He knows even he cannot outrun time. Before, when things went wayward, it was easier to fix. Even last season, there were slumps, but they did not persist. It\u2019s why he batted .304. The Phillies asked him to trade a pull-happy swing for one that leveraged the entire field. Turner sacrificed power. It made him a more complete player; he finished fifth in National League MVP voting. By fWAR, he had the second-best season of his career.<\/p>\n
That is somehow easy to forget. The Phillies did not advance deep into October. Turner wasn\u2019t even the highest NL MVP finisher on his own team (Kyle Schwarber, second).<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, that\u2019s my whole career,\u201d Turner said. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t remember me because I\u2019m not the flashiest. But it\u2019s kind of how I like it. I just want to be a good player, and if you recognize it, you do. If you don\u2019t, you don\u2019t. I don\u2019t really give a s\u2014 about that. It\u2019s kind of like, \u2018What have you done for me lately?\u2019 That\u2019s how I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
That can be a trap, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy thing is never a lack of confidence,\u201d Turner said. \u201cI don\u2019t need to be reminded I\u2019m a good player. I know I\u2019m a good player. So it\u2019s never from a confidence standpoint. It\u2019s, \u2018I\u2019m better than this.\u2019 It\u2019s really just competing. It\u2019s not mental. I think sometimes people tell me, \u2018You\u2019ve got to remember how good you are.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018I don\u2019t really ever feel that way. I don\u2019t ever feel like I\u2019m not good enough.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really the opposite in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe the adjustments have become harder. Or at least less obvious. He is chasing more than last year, but not by a lot. He is swinging at the first pitch far less than last year. Everything is connected as he searches.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I move on from an adjustment a little bit too quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cBut also, if I do the adjustment right and it is the right adjustment, I feel (like) I have success kind of right away. Maybe it\u2019s not success in getting hits, but it\u2019s doing things right. So I know when it feels different in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Tuesday\u2019s seventh inning, after three at-bats without results, Turner drove the first pitch he saw to left field for a double. He later scored a run. In the eighth inning, Turner chased a two-strike pitch out of the zone but did it with a short swing. He smacked a run-scoring single to center.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t carry over into Wednesday. The Phillies rallied to win<\/a>, but Turner had more to think about. He\u2019ll probably keep swinging in the afternoon.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s just working at it,\u201d Turner said. \u201cSometimes I\u2019ll literally not swing all day and just go out there and play. Sometimes, there\u2019s a day when you just swing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Trea Turner was on the field four hours before Tuesday\u2019s game against the Athletics, which meant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2365,85],"class_list":["post-655607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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