In his career, Trea Turner has destroyed left-handed pitchers.

However, if you’ve been watching him with the Phillies thus far, you’d think that initial statement was a bold-faced lie.

It’s understandable. Turner is just 6-for-31 (.194) against lefties this season. His OPS+ against lefties, as compared to his usual OPS+, is 49 (With 100 being the league average). His OPS+ against lefties compared to the rest of baseball in the split is 51.

He was 0-for-3 against lefties in the Phillies 5-3 loss to the Mariners Tuesday. He struck out three times and has now done so in 10 of his last 22 at bats in the last five games regardless of which hand the pitcher throws the ball.

Turner is an aggressive hitter, so he’s going to accrue his share of strikeouts. With the exception of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Turner has whiffed more than 100 times every season since 2018. But even in his 131 strikeout campaign last season he struck out in 18.5% of his plate appearances. So far, in 2023, he has struck out 28 times, a rate of 25.5% of the time, or about once every four times up.

This isn’t what the Phillies expected to see from their $300 million offseason investment.

Considering Turner has a career slash line of .313/.371/.503 with an .874 OPS against lefties it’s safe to assume that this is a blip on the radar and he’ll figure it out, but it’s also been an Achilles’ heel for the Phillies this season while he’s been a big part of it.

I asked him after the game what he feels is off-kilter currently.

“I’m not getting too much to hit and I’m trying to do a little bit too much, you know,” he said. “I got to earn those pitches and get those pitchers in the zone. Right now it’s a little bit of a battle. It feels like everything is hitting the edge of the box and I’m swinging at balls and taking strikes. It’s a tough equation.”

It’s one of those funks that gets in a hitter’s head, for sure. He’s taking pitches on the black that are strikes so the next one, that’s just a little further outside, he’s flailing at it. Credit the opposing pitchers for having a good approach on him right now, but that’s what he means by earning pitches to hit. If you get into chase mode at the plate pitchers aren’t going to challenge you in your happy zone. Lay off those pitches and they’ll have no choice.

But the Phillies on the whole aren’t hitting lefties as well as they should. So far this season, against lefty starters the Phillies are slashing .269/.319/.437 with a .756 OPS. It’s not terrible, but compared to against righties (.281/.344/.458 .803 OPS) it’s been enough of a difference that the Phillies are just 2-5 in games against lefty starters this year.

And when you look at the two wins, one was the ninth inning rally against the Reds in the second home game of the season in which Cincinnati starter Nick Lodolo dominated them, and the other was last Saturday when Nick Castellanos hit two homers and Cristian Pache homered off Kyle Freeland to beat the Rockies 4-3. And although they had those three homers off Freeland, the Rockies lefty allowed only two other hits in the game.

Against lefties, the two spots in the Phillies lineup that have been the least productive have been the leadoff spot and No. 2 spot. The leadoff hitters have an OBP of just .296 and an OPS of .696. The No. 2 hitters have been .288 and .711 respectively.

Turner has been in one of those two spots in every game. Bryson Stott, who has been great so far, and Kyle Schwarber have mostly been the others (Alec Bohm hit second in one game).

And while the rest of the lineup has been mostly solid against lefties, if the top two guys in the lineup aren’t getting on base, you definitely aren’t going to score many runs. The Phillies have scored just 18 runs in games the opponents have started a lefty, which is 2.57 runs per game. In 17 games facing righty starters the Phillies have scored 92 runs or 5.41 per game.

A FALT IN OUR STARTS

Bailey Falter has mostly pitched well for the Phillies, and considering he’s been thrust into a much larger role than expected the Phillies can’t ask for much more.

That said, he’s 0-4 with a 4.50 ERA in an MLB-leading five starts.

Overall, his WHIP is 1.14, which is very good. But Falter has a tendency to make a handful of bad pitches in every outing – much like any pitcher does – the difference is, he’s run into some bad luck in a sense.

While a lot of pitchers get away with bad pitches Falter’s bad pitches are leading to runs. Several of them home runs as he’s allowed five already this season.

Two of them proved to be the difference in the loss to the Mariners:

“One was a curveball that was up and one was a slider that was middle,” Falter said, confirming that they were not the locations he wanted either pitch. “A couple of bad pitches and these guys capitalized on them… yet again. I feel like I’ve been telling you guys the same shit since the season started.”

The difference with Falter is, as much as he competes – and that he does, which is a trait that is golden when it comes to keeping his team in games, he doesn’t have the stuff to consistently get away with the bad pitches that some pitchers do. That is why his mistakes tend to clear the wall a little more frequently.

It’s a fine line between being a Falter and being a Matt Strahm. Their pitches ultimately aren’t much different. Strahm beats batters with deception. Falter relies on having a big stride and a late release point that makes his pitches seem harder and faster because they are getting on batters quicker from the release point, even if they aren’t in danger of touching triple digits.

But while it may take longer to pick up a pitch from Strahm, who hides the ball well, batters can find Falter’s mistakes the more they see him. Which begged a question to manager Rob Thomson after the game – is Falter a guy who maybe you don’t risk having him face batters a third time in the same game?

“It depends on the (opponent) and it depends on how he’s pitching,” Thomson said. “I thought he was pitching really well.”

It’ll be interesting to see how long Thomson goes with Falter in his next start in Houston on Sunday.

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

  • Ranger Suarez will begin his rehab assignment Thursday where he is expected to throw two innings with AA Reading. Thomson has repeatedly said he’ll need 3-4 rehab starts to get stretched out to 90-100 pitches before coming back to the Phillies which puts him on target to rejoin the big club sometime between May 12-19.
  • Cristian Pache continues to hit lefties. He had two more hits Tuesday and made a difficult sliding catch in left field. He’s now hitting .348 for the season.
  • Yunior Marte made his first appearance since returning from AAA Lehigh Valley and had a 1-2-3 inning. Thomson spoke glowingly about him afterward and even took time to go up to him in the clubhouse and tell him how great a job he did. I asked Marte what went wrong between his stellar spring and the start of the regular season, “I fell into some bad habits,” he said. “Luckily for me, I was able to make an adjustment quickly when I realized that I was doing that.”
  • Speaking of Marte, he wore blue long sleeves under his jersey, which looked weird since everyone else wears red when they go long sleeves. He was asked about this too and said he was cold and it was the only long-sleeve shirt he had. After the game, he did try on a red one that was placed in his locker, but it looked tight, and he didn’t look happy with it. Maybe the Phillies will get him one that fits better or maybe the blue one will become his thing. Who knows.
  • The fans started getting crazy at Dollar Dog Night again. Hot dogs were being thrown and police were escorting fans out of the stadium in the late innings. While most of this action took place in the stands, With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and two strikes on Bryson Stott – who was the tying run at the plate – fans chucked hot dogs onto the field in the outfield, forcing a stoppage of play and clean up that was handled by both the Phillies ball girls and Mariners outfielders Jared Kelenic and Teoscar Hernandez. It definitely disrupted the rhythm of the at bat and Stott struck out two pitches later to end the game. Fans are dopes sometimes.