Is Trea Turner finally heating up? Phillies hope titanic blast is a good sign

SAN DIEGO — He had just hit a baseball 434 feet off the brick warehouse in left field at Petco Park, so Trea Turner wanted another look. Once everyone in the Phillies dugout had congratulated him, Turner found an iPad. He replayed the swing.

He smiled.

“It was kind of funny,” Turner said after Tuesday night’s 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres. “That was what I worked on all day. Then you go in the game and it clicks. It happens. It was nice to have that immediate reassurance.”

The Phillies are desperate to see their $300 million shortstop emerge from the fog of the first two months. There might be others more critical to reviving this season — the Phillies are back over .500 after Tuesday’s win — but Turner is undeniably important. Interim manager Don Mattingly texted Turner and Kyle Schwarber on Monday night to tell them he was making a change. Schwarber would bat first in Tuesday’s game. Turner was bumped to second.

He homered. He singled. He also could not cleanly field a ball up the middle with two outs in the fourth, prolonging the inning and giving Manny Machado a chance to smash a two-run homer off Aaron Nola. A few steps forward, one step back. This entire thing has been difficult for Turner, who at times looks like someone trying to atone for a horrendous beginning to his season with one swing. It will not happen like that.

So, at least, this was something.

“Obviously,” Mattingly said, “getting him going would be huge for us.”

‼️ Trea off the third deck ‼️ pic.twitter.com/DSUq5Ackj0

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) May 27, 2026

Turner is hitting .225 through 54 games, an unthinkable number for the only qualified hitter in the National League who batted .300 a season ago. He has a .626 OPS. A day after Mattingly said he wasn’t contemplating lineup changes, he sat Adolis García and flipped Turner and Schwarber. “You’re not really doing anything a whole lot different,” Mattingly said. “You’re just looking for a little different feel for him.” It was only the second time this season (April 22) that Turner started and did not hit first.

In the afternoon, well before the first pitch, Turner went to work during early batting practice. He thought he had been starting his swings well, but he was not staying through the ball. It was in his head as he took swings inside an empty stadium.

“And I was hitting a ton of homers because I’m trying to finish my swing,” Turner said. “I was hitting a lot more homers than I usually hit in BP.”

In the third inning, Turner’s solo homer put the Phillies ahead by three runs. It was the longest ball Turner has hit since September 2024. It also snapped a hitless streak of 18 at-bats. He smacked a broken-bat single in the fifth inning and stole second base.

“Same thing,” Turner said. “If I don’t finish my swing, I don’t get a hit right there. I just roll it over to second base or whatever. So those two at-bats are a good sign.”

Turner is searching for anything. He has to be better because his status demands it. He is the third highest-paid player on a team with one of the highest payrolls in MLB. The Phillies have underachieved. It’s not all on Turner. But, as the shortstop and lineup pacesetter, he matters.

The Phillies entered Tuesday with a .267 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot. It would be their lowest mark since at least 1898. (The wartime Phillies in 1941 had a .276 on-base percentage from the top spot.) Only three teams since the league expanded in 1969 have had lower on-base percentages from atop the lineup: the 1969 Padres (.237), the 1981 Blue Jays (.238) and the 2012 Reds (.254).

It is difficult to imagine the Phillies being historically bad in this specific area over 162 games. But, right now, it explains so much about why the offense has underwhelmed. Schwarber and Bryce Harper have amassed the most homers by teammates in MLB, but of their 34 combined homers, 23 have been solo shots.

That would be different with more production from the leadoff spot, Turner’s usual home.

“Obviously, it’s not ideal,” Mattingly said. “You’d like that guy to be getting on base, especially when you have Schwarb and Harp coming. But it’s not a situation we think will sustain itself. Trea’s going to get it together. It’s probably not the first time that he’s struggled for a period of time. He’s going to come out of it. Yeah, it’s probably not ideal, but it kind of is what it is right now.”

Could the Phillies stick with Schwarber first and Turner second?

“I mean, I think we just see,” Mattingly said. “I really don’t think it’s a big deal, honestly, which one’s which.”

Turner turns 33 at the end of June, and it’s only natural to wonder whenever an established Phillies star goes through a prolonged slump whether he’s a victim of time. It comes for everyone. Those around the Phillies have insisted this is not the case with Turner; he has not lost the athleticism and twitchy movements that have made him an elite player. The work ethic has not dwindled. He’s listened to ideas and applied various adjustments.

It has just taken him far longer to shake this malaise. The best players shorten their slumps. They find fast solutions. Turner might not be in that class any longer. But he can still be productive.

The Phillies are waiting for it.

“You can’t get it all back in one day,” Turner said. “We’ve been talking about it a lot in the cages, how offensive numbers around the entire league are down. Great players all over the league are hitting way below their career averages, which I think is kind of weird. Hitting’s gotten so hard with the pitching and the defenses and whatnot. You have to find a way to adjust and kind of evolve. So that’s what I try to do every day.”

Tuesday, for the most part, was a good day. That counts for something.