The Phillies’ Trea Turner hasn’t felt ‘locked in’ at the plate since 2021. Here’s why he feels like he is once again.

Shortly after Trea Turner signed with the Phillies in December, he had a talk with hitting coach Kevin Long. They were quite familiar with each other. Long had worked with Turner from 2018-21 in Washington. He knew his swing inside and out. But nevertheless, what Turner said surprised him.

“I didn’t feel good last year,” he told the coach. “I didn’t feel locked in. I haven’t felt locked in since 2021.”

At first glance, the numbers didn’t back it up. Turner, who was traded from the Nationals to the Dodgers at the deadline in 2021, hit .298/.343/.466 with 100 RBIs in 2022. He was voted an All-Star, won his first Silver Slugger award, and finished 11th in NL MVP voting. But despite the accolades, Turner didn’t feel consistent. He’d go 2-for-4 one day, and 0-for-4 the next. He’d get hot for a day or two, rather than a week or two.

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Turner pointed to three trends that were particularly concerning to him: He was striking out more, hitting for power less, and hitting the other way less.

This time, the numbers did back it up. Turner’s strikeout rate rose from 17% in 2021 to 18.5% in 2022. His slugging percentage dropped from .565 to .466. His hard-hit percentage dropped from 35% to 31.5%. And his percentage of hits to the opposite field dropped from 24.9% to 21.8%.

After their talk, Long started to look at video of Turner in search of answers. He said he looked every day since the day the Phillies signed Turner. But just over a week ago, he stopped looking. Long and the Phillies’ biomechanists found something.

It was part of Turner’s setup and loading mechanism. They noticed that he was a little bit more upright and a little less into his legs than he had been with Washington. In short, he wasn’t in the right position to fire properly.

Long made some changes to Turner’s setup before the game against the Nationals on June 3. He told Turner to get more into his hips and to get lower to the ground. He told him not to drop his head as much. It was a “very minute” change, in Long’s telling, but an effective one.

“Like I said the other day, on video it’s so hard to tell the change, but that little bit of degree [in the hips] makes a big difference for me,” Turner said. “And when your head is not moving as much, you make better decisions, you swing at better pitches, you hit the ball harder. When you hit the ball harder, you hit for more power. You make contact more.

“Everything should go up if your mechanics are really good and simple and efficient.”

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Turner took his new setup into that June 3 game and went 1-for-3 with a double and a walk. He said that was the game it clicked for him. He was taking some pitches he would have swung at a week earlier. He was taking good swings at pitches in and away. He felt aggressive, but in all the right ways.

Turner went 0-for-5 the next day but made hard contact three times.

“I felt better,” he said. “Finally.”

Turner has hit .344/.382/.594 since June 3. His hard-hit rate has jumped from 30.8% in April to 43% in May to 63% in June. He’s averaging an exit velocity on balls in play of 96 mph — which ranks ninth among all qualified hitters in baseball. He has cut his swing-and-miss rate from 28.8% in May to 28.2% in June.

It has taken a while to get to this point. Long said Turner would hit after games. He would take so many swings that he would sweat through his T-shirts. It was frustrating at times, and Long doesn’t want to say anything definitive just yet. But he is cautiously optimistic.

“We’ll see where this leads,” he said. “I’m not going to say that it’s there. But when you hit nine out of your last 11 at 100 mph, something has definitely changed.”

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Turner is more willing to say it. When asked if he felt back to his 2019-21 self, he answered with an immediate “Yes.”

“I feel like there is a mindset change that comes with it, too,” he said. “It’s a confidence. It’s, ‘Oh, I just missed that one,’ instead of, ‘Damn, that happened again.’ And I think that’s something I’ve been looking for.”