Two months before he was the most dynamic player on a team two wins from the National League Championship Series, Trea Turner wondered whether he would ever get another hit. He knew what was wrong, but he couldn’t fix it. “I’m tight,” he told hitting coach Kevin Long. “I’m trying too hard.”
The tightness showed up in Turner’s shoulders, and in his back, and in his limbs. Eight months after he signed an 11-year, $300 million deal to be among the faces of the Phillies, he was the 15th-feeblest hitter in the majors, and now, at the worst point of the worst season of his career, he couldn’t play shortstop, either. He was in the midst of an 0-for-5 night against the Marlins in August when he misplayed an 11th-inning ground ball that drove in a run; Miami would win in 12 innings. He trudged to the LoanDepot Park indoor batting cage, where he and Long spent an hour trying to return him to the player who’d finished 11th in National League MVP voting a year earlier.
They paused only long enough for Turner to return to the clubhouse to tell reporters: “Obviously I’m the reason why we lost that game.” Then he went back to hacking.
