For a team that was led early by National League MVP candidate Cody Bellinger and strong starting pitching, the Los Angeles Dodgers again received another season of steady production from Justin Turner.
His batting average (.290) and on-base percentage (.372) were both slightly down from last year, but Turner had a nearly identical slugging (.509) and tied a career high with 27 home runs. He additionally did so as a right-handed batter that helped provide balance to a lineup that featured a bevy of left-handed hitters.
“He is at the center of it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts recently said of Turner’s importance to the team’s collective approach.
“You never want to say one player is more important or you value one player more than the other, but I think if you look at the consistency of at-bats; understanding what you’re trying to do each at-bat. Whether it be run a pitch count up or hunt a pitch to ambush, we don’t have anyone more consistent than J.T.
“He allows for guys in front and behind him to take their at-bats. There’s many times where he’ll concede pitches to go in grind mode for the benefit of the club. His value, I can’t undersell that.”
When Turner did decide to offer at the first pitch this season, he succeeded to the tune of a .415/.492/.792 batting line with five doubles, five home runs and 10 RBI.
“He’s in the top, top percentile when you’re talking about that coined phrase, ‘professional hitter,'” Roberts added. “A professional hitter is someone that can conduct an at-bat regardless of who the pitcher is, regardless of the situation. J.T. does that as well as anybody in baseball.”
Though Turner has a proven track record not only in production but in sensing what the Dodgers need from an approach standpoint in any given at-bat, it’s not exactly fully predetermined. “I don’t think it’s necessarily plotted out in my head,” he told DodgerBlue.com.
“It’s something I’ve always done or try to do. I don’t know if it’s necessarily what other guys look to to go about their business, but that’s just kind of what I’ve done. Pick and choose my spots to be aggressive, pick and choose my spots when trying to run long at-bats, and all the ones in between just try to get a good pitch to hit.
“There’s conversations obviously about stringing together quality at-bat, quality at-bat, quality at-bat, and that’s when we put up our crooked numbers.”
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