Trea Turner closed out the regular season on a tear that earned him National League Player of the Week honors and batting crown by a wide margin. However, he’s yet to meet expectations through seven postseason games with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Turner has hit safely in four games, which includes three multi-hit efforts. However, Turner also has been prone to chasing out of the zone and it’s amounted to six strikeouts in 30 at-bats, just two extra-base hits and one RBI.
“I feel like I’m not doing enough,” he said after the Dodgers’ walk-off loss to the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series.
“I feel like I’ve been not aggressive enough and I feel like I swing and miss sometimes, but when I get two strikes I’ll battle. But for me I need to take those chances. I need to be aggressive and I think when I’m aggressive I’ll take balls and swing at strikes and I’ll do what I need to.
“But I feel like in the last five, six games I feel like I haven’t been aggressive enough.”
Although Turner went 2-for-4 and had a stolen base in Game 1, he struck out swinging and stranded the go-ahead run in scoring position in the seventh inning. “Yeah, I think might have been a little bit too aggressive,” Turner said of the at-bat against Tyler Matzek.
“But I’m OK with that because that’s what I told myself I wanted to do. So, kind of like I just spoke to, if will tell myself to be aggressive and then I’m taking pitches right down the middle, them I’m obviously not accomplishing what I want to accomplish.
“So, yeah, he made some good pitches, I swung at some balls. Obviously I would like to have that one, that at-bat back, but kind of a different look than I saw in the past. Normally I feel like he’s throwing fastballs up, kind of went to fastballs down right there, so just a little bit different look and he got me.”
Turner sees progress
Turner was encouraged by his multi-hit performance but remains focused on his overall work and preparation.
“For me, it’s not about going 2-for-4, 4-for-4, 0-for-4. It’s about kind of your process throughout the day,” he explained.
“You can hit four balls hard and to me then you got to move on to the next day and say, ‘I did my job, and I might be 0-for-4, but I did my job.’ So as long as my process is good and I feel like my work’s good and my at-bats are what I want them to be, then I can live with the outcome.
“And like I said, sometimes you’re going to get lucky and hit the ball in the right spot, sometimes you’re going to get unlucky and hit the ball right at somebody, but you got to have a short memory in this game.”
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