PHILADELPHIA -- How many people can truly relate to the night Trea Turner had on Monday?
Perhaps only a few.
Turner both celebrated and suffered throughout the Phillies’ 10-7 victory over the Dodgers at Citizens Bank Park. He went 3-for-5 with two home runs, one double and five RBIs. He also had four miscues in the field that had fans oscillating between joyous cheers and full-throated boos.
“Just a ridiculous game, in general, by me,” Turner said.
A snapshot of Monday’s absurdity: Turner made an error in the top of the first, hit a leadoff double in the bottom of the first, hit a two-run homer in the second to give the Phillies a two-run lead, missed a ground ball to his left in the fourth, booted a chopper up the middle with two outs in the sixth to cut the lead to one and smacked a three-run home run around the left-field foul pole in the sixth to extend the Phillies’ lead to five.
It was the 200th homer of Turner’s career.
But it wasn’t over yet. Turner couldn’t handle Tommy Edman’s line drive up the middle in the ninth, contributing to Mookie Betts’ three-run homer, which cut the Phillies’ lead to three. It prompted Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly to bring Jhoan Duran into the game with two outs and nobody on to finish the game.
Turner shook his head after the Edman play. He smiled in disbelief.
Even teammates couldn’t help but give him a hard time about it.
“The roller coaster -- up, down, up, down,” Turner said. “You know, you do things like that or have games like that. Sometimes you just gotta laugh about it, and they gave me a hard time. So it was good, kind of getting some [expletive] from them.
“If you can't laugh at yourself, then you're kind of done for.”
There have been other weird games like this in Phillies history. Mike Schmidt’s four-strikeout, walk-off home run game against the Expos on May 28, 1983, came to mind on Monday. Schmidt struck out on 12 pitches in his first four at-bats at Veterans Stadium, extending his hitless streak to 22 at-bats.
He got booed throughout the night. But then fans cheered him as he walked to the plate in the ninth.
He hit a walk-off homer.
“I was totally lost, mentally, as a hitter,” Schmidt said.
But he got past it. He survived.
Turner believes he will get past it, too.
Offensively, Turner’s turnaround started more than a month ago. He is batting .324 with seven doubles, seven home runs, 19 RBIs and a .943 OPS in 27 games since June 17.
He has homered in three of his past four games. Of course, he has committed an error in each of those three games.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Turner said about his defensive woes. “But it happens. Keep working and we’ll get through it.”
It’s not from a lack of effort. Turner works hard on both sides of the ball, sometimes self-admittedly spending too much time in the batting cage before and after games. But Turner has been on the field early the past few days, working on his defense with Phillies infield coach Bobby Dickerson.
The defensive turnaround just hasn’t happened yet.
But the Phillies believe it will.
And if it does, it will happen at shortstop.
“Trea’s our guy,” Mattingly said. “Trea works every day, so it's not like Trea’s out there and he doesn't care about defense. Trea cares about his defense. He wants to make plays. He's working every day, so we ride with Trea.”
Turner’s 200th career homer hit the concrete wall behind the left-field foul pole and ricocheted onto the field.
“I don't think, early in my career, anybody thought I would hit 200 homers, so I think it's kind of cool from an evolution standpoint of where I was when I was younger and what kind of hitter I was to doing that at the highest level,” he said.
Turner got the ball. He said he will keep it in a room with other milestone baseballs and memorabilia from his career.
It’s a game he won’t forget.