How the Phillies’ Trea Turner tried to stay ready during his six-week stint on the injured list

Turner, who missed 38 games with a hamstring injury, leaned on past experience and “understanding my swing” to try to pick up where he left off with the Phillies.

Phillies shortstop Trea Turner was back in the lineup Monday after missing 38 games while on the injured list with a strained left hamstring.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Alex Coffey

Published June 18, 2024, 10:00 a.m. ET

Trea Turner has only been on the injured list a handful of times in his 10-year career, and just three times in the past six seasons. In 2019, he went on a rehab assignment after breaking his right index finger. But in 2021, he didn’t.

Turner was activated off the injured list that August and went straight into big league games. When he returned, he looked no different than he had before. The then-Dodgers infielder, who already was in the midst of an All-Star season, hit .338/.385/.565 with a .950 OPS over 52 games.

He learned some things that year — mainly, how to stay fresh during a prolonged injured-list stint — and applied them to his recent six-week IL stint with the Phillies.

“I think it’s understanding my swing, most importantly,” said Turner, who was activated off the IL before Monday’s 9-2 victory over the Padres. “I did a lot of moving around [in the batting cage]. When [people typically] do BP, you kind of stand in the same spot and you get a 50-mph pitch over and over and over. I feel like you don’t challenge your swing to speed up or slow down or adjust. So moving up and back in the cage has really helped me a lot.

“I’ve used a little bit of the Trajekt [pitching] machine. I never really liked the hitting machine, but now that they have foam balls that can simulate better pitches and make fastballs go up. You can kind of overtrain that way. I do a lot of one-handed drills. I think those are the main things. It’s about tricking your brain.”

Turner, who was out with a left hamstring strain, spent most days preparing as if he was going to enter a game. If the Phillies were facing a pitcher with a nasty slider, he’d see a lot of sliders. If they were facing a pitcher whose signature pitch was a sweeping curveball, he’d see a lot of curveballs.

Those drills helped him simulate what he’d see whenever he returned. Having foam balls shoot out of a machine enabled him to see game speed without having to worry about getting hit by an actual baseball. The one-handed drills — with a short bat — allowed him to let the ball travel deeper into the zone.

This work wasn’t necessarily different from what another injured player would do, but the amount of work Turner did was.

“I feel like he’s done a really good job of keeping the swing going when he could,” Kyle Schwarber said. “You would see him down in the cage, outside early, hitting, doing a lot of different things. Being able to stay fresh. And I feel like a tribute to him, the work that he put in, that everyone felt comfortable to not let him go out on a rehab assignment and get him back as quick as possible.”

Added hitting coach Kevin Long: “He pushed himself extremely hard to get ready. It was standard work but much more on the workload end. He just made sure he checked all the boxes.”

Turner was among the Phillies’ hottest hitters when he went on the injured list on May 4. They went 25-13 while he was on the IL but struggled to find anyone who could match his production in the No. 2 spot in the lineup, especially after J.T. Realmuto went down with right knee pain.

On Monday night, Turner was not only back in the lineup, but he looked like himself. Turner went 2-for-5 against the Padres in the series opener. His single in the fifth inning jumped off his bat at 106.6 mph. His single in the sixth was not hit nearly as hard, but it came after a long at-bat.

His manager was impressed.

“Trea is an unbelievable athlete,” Rob Thomson said. “He had really good at-bats, really good swings. It looked like his timing was good. And that says something about a guy that hasn’t had an at-bat in a long time.”

Turner felt like his timing was a little off, but he was happy with his night. It’s impossible to know what will happen over the next 90 games, but there are reasons to be optimistic.

“I really felt like my swing was in a good spot the whole time,” Turner said. “I felt like I was loading right. My swing was coming out good. So my work has been good. It’s about taking that into the game.”