'It was boiling inside him': How Trea turned debut Phillies season around

PHILADELPHIA -- Before Trea Turner got the ovations that resurrected his season, he hit in the batting cages in Miami.

There are peaks and valleys to a season, but Turner lived deep in the valley for weeks, maybe months, in 2023. He went 0-for-5 and missed a catchable ground ball in the 11th inning in a heartbreaking 9-8 loss to Miami in 12 innings on Aug. 2 at loanDepot park. If Turner had caught that ball, the Phillies would have won the game. If he had gotten a hit with a runner in scoring position, the Phillies likely would have avoided extra innings. Instead, he left the field that night batting .237 with 10 home runs, 34 RBIs and a .667 OPS, which was 180 points below his career mark.

Frustrated, Turner entered the batting cage. He hit until midnight.

Thwack.

Thwack.

Was he working on something specifically? Or was he punishing himself for his poor play? Turner signed an 11-year, $300 million contract with the Phillies in December. It came with immense pressure and expectations, and Turner had not delivered to that point.

“A little bit of both,” Turner said Sunday afternoon at Citizens Bank Park, where the Phillies worked out in preparation for Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Monday night against Arizona. “I don’t know if it was punishing myself or more like, getting some anger out, finding some solutions. It was probably more finding solutions.

“I always think I feel better when I do things right. Whether I go 0-for-4 or make an error, whatever, if I do things right, then I feel better about it. If I’m doing things wrong, then that makes me more mad.”

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Turner received a standing ovation before each of his plate appearances on Aug. 4 against Kansas City at Citizens Bank Park. It sparked something. Turner batted .337 with 16 homers, 42 RBIs and a 1.057 OPS the rest of the season. He is batting .500 (12-for-24) with four doubles, two home runs, three RBIs, four stolen bases and a 1.455 OPS in six postseason games.

But that night in Miami played a role in his turnaround, too.

Thwack.

Thwack.

“It was boiling inside of him,” Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long said. “That’s when it all came to a head. Trea was so frustrated. He just needed to vent. We had some other guys in the cage, I said, ‘You guys need to leave.’ I knew he needed to vent. I knew he needed to talk. He needed to get a lot of [stuff] off his chest. Offensive, defensively, the way things were going for him, he was very upset about it.

“He got everything off his chest. I said, ‘OK, now we move forward.’ And then we started talking about his swing. We started talking about him relaxing and trusting his game, which I’ve seen for years and years and years. Knowing how talented he is and knowing that it’s in there, but at that point, he was not the Trea Turner that I had known and grown to love.”

It is unusual for a player of Turner’s caliber to hit so late after a game, but it is something he had done in the past.

“I used to do that earlier in my career,” Turner said. “I did it in college a lot [at North Carolina State]. I hit a lot in college. Early in my career, I’d do that maybe three, four times a year. Maybe. But the last few years, I haven’t had to do that that often.

“My at-bats were bad then. Everything seemed to be going wrong. That series [in Miami], I was really bad offensively. I was missing a lot of fastballs. I was fouling off a lot of pitches that I should have hit. I was chasing a lot of offspeed pitches. I’ve always been a good fastball hitter, so when I’m fouling those balls off, I know there’s something wrong. Once again, if I get out or something, that’s fine. But when I’m fouling things off, I feel like, 'Ah, the at-bat should be over. I should’ve hit a line drive or done something. I shouldn’t have missed that pitch over and over.'”

At one point during Turner’s late-night hitting session, teammate Nick Castellanos stepped into the cage and reminded him that he is one of the best players in the world and he should not forget that.

Long reminded him, too.

“He just came off the WBC and he’s the best player on Team USA, by far,” Long said. “And then the season starts and it’s a disaster. There’s only one way to get out of this, and that’s to keep working and grinding. So when stuff’s not clicking for him, he’s grinding in the cages.”

Turner would have gotten on track eventually. Everybody believes that. The ovations might have accelerated the process.

“Everybody wants to point to one specific moment,” Turner said. “But that’s when I started playing better, right after that. I’d say that was kind of the low point [in Miami]. It felt like that for a while, though. It felt like that for 50 games. I was just down there for so long. That was the tough part.”