What a difference a week makes.
Heading into the Phillies’ seven-game homestand against the Marlins and Nationals, Trea Turner had fallen into one of his patented ultra-funks. In the 21 games following his appearance as the National League starting shortstop in the All Star Game, Turner went 16-for-91, with a .176/.219/.2674 slash line and a .438 OPS. It seemed like every ball in play was a grounder to third that drove his batting average down from .349 to .301 and his OPS from .941 to .815.
All in three weeks.
In Tuesday’s series opener against Miami, he went 0-for-4, dropping his average below .300 for the first time since April 15 (.297). In a quest to get his start shortstop headed in the right direction, Thomson benched Turner for the finale against Miami. That, and a change to his swing after watching some old game tape from three years ago, seemed to do the trick.
In the four-game series against Washington, Turner went 10-for-17 with a homer, three doubles and a walk-off RBI single that just missed being a grand slam on Friday night. In those four games alone, Turner raised his average from .297 all the way back up to .311.
Turner’s resurgence is, first and foremost, great news for a Phillies lineup that desperately needs him to hit and get on base in the No. 2 hole in the lineup. When Turner is hitting, the entire offense seems to chug along with him. But his Player of the Week performance also put him atop the NL leaderboard in a very fun statistic.
Wait, you don’t see him there? Huh. Where’d he go?
The reason you don’t see Turner and his .311 average at the top of the NL leaderboard is because he doesn’t yet have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. Players need to have accumulated 3.1 plate appearances for every game played. The Phils have played 121 games which means Turner would qualify if he had 384.4 PAs.
He’s currently at 374.
If Turner continues to get 4-5 PAs per game, he’ll easily accumulate enough over the next couple weeks, at which point, he will qualify for the batting title.
It’s been a minute since a Phillie won a batting title. The last to do it was Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn in 1958, his .350 average beating out Willie Mays’ .347, Ashburn’s second batting title.
This came a time when batting average was seen as the ultimate measure of a hitter. We no longer look at this statistic as the be-all, end-all, instead gravitating to on-base percentage, OPS, wRC+ and other metrics that incorporate slugging and on-base skills.
But winning a batting title would still be pretty cool. He would join Ashburn, Harry Walker (1947), Chuck Klein (1933), Lefty O’Doul (1929) and Sherry Magee (1910) as the only Phillies in the modern era to win the batting crown if he can maintain his current pace.
Had Turner not fallen into a month-long abyss, he’d be the runaway favorite to finish atop the leaderboard, but he did and now he’s in a battle with some serious contenders, namely San Diego’s Luis Arraez, a two-time batting champion in 2022 with Minnesota (.316 in 2022) and the defending NL champ with Miami (.354). At .304, Arraez is having a “down” year at the plate, but can get hot at any time and make a charge.
One other Phillie has an outside chance, with Alec Bohm plugging away in 4th place at .296. Bohm has consistently hit well all season, but will likely need to see that average jump 10-15 points at least to make it happen.
