PHILADELPHIA -- The biggest question facing the Phillies over the final three weeks of the regular season was whether Trea Turner would be ready for the postseason.
With Turner returning to the lineup for Sunday's regular-season finale, the question has now shifted to which version of Turner the Phillies will get for the postseason.
Though Turner saw his first game action since straining his right hamstring on Sept. 7, he didn't have to test it very much on Sunday. He went 0-for-2 with a pair of routine groundouts. He wasn't exactly busting it down the line on either play, topping out at 25.5 feet per second, per Statcast.
That's nothing more than a jog for Turner, whose average sprint speed of 30.3 feet per second led all players this season.
“I knew if I was going to hit a ground ball somewhere, I wasn’t going to do anything stupid,” Turner said after the game. “[Sunday] was more about getting out there, just kind of feeling it again. More about seeing pitches and being on defense. I didn’t really get anything on defense, but the at-bats felt good. I knew if I hit something, I wasn’t going to be going crazy, like I could have.”
Turner, though, is confident he can -- and will -- be able to do that, if needed, in Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday.
"Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping for," Turner said. "For sure."
Of course, nobody will know if Turner is truly able to ramp it up until the time comes to do so. Last year, it took him a few weeks to finally let it rip on the basepaths after returning from a hamstring injury.
But there are a couple of important caveats to that.
For starters, Turner's hamstring strain last year was a Grade 2. This year's strain was a Grade 1 -- the mildest version. Last year's injury also happened much earlier in the season. With Turner returning on June 17 last season, there wasn't much incentive to push it right out of the gate.
Perhaps that's why Turner didn't even attempt a stolen base in his first 14 games back. Beyond that, he had only four stolen bases over his first 60 games following his return from the IL -- his fewest in any 60-game span in his career.
"I think he was probably still recovering a little bit," manager Rob Thomson said. "Also there's kind of a fear in there -- for everybody when they come back from injury. ... It's always in the back of your mind. So hopefully we can get through that, and he's 100% and runs 100%."
It wasn't just a lack of stolen base attempts or a hesitation to take an extra base, though. According to Statcast, Turner was indeed running considerably slower upon his initial return.
Following his return to the lineup last season, Turner's average sprint speed for the rest of June was just 27.9 feet per second. That's his slowest sprint speed for any single month in his 11-year career.
"I'd say there's definitely a couple thoughts that go through your head, at least for me, before you do that first all-out sprint," said teammate Brandon Marsh, who has landed on the IL due to a strained hamstring in each of the past two seasons. "But I think at the end of the day, the game's going to dictate it. That ground ball the other day, you're going to jog. But as we get going here in the playoffs, he hits that same ground ball, he's going to try to beat that out and get after it."
Nobody does that better Turner.
He led the Majors with 32 infield hits this season. His 76 infield hits since joining the Phillies are also the most in the Majors during that span.
Turner has also been a key contributor atop the lineup this season after settling into the leadoff spot for good on June 9. The Phillies went 73-47 -- a 98-win pace -- when Turner got on base at least once. They were 47-18 -- a 117-win pace -- when he reached base multiple times.
It's also about what Turner can do once he's on base, especially in the postseason when runs are at a premium.
Turner is one of only 10 players in MLB history to have three multi-steal games in the postseason. All three of those games have come over the past three postseasons with the Phillies -- and all three resulted in Phillies wins.
The Phillies are hoping that’s the version of Turner they will get in the NLDS. But they won’t know until they see him leg out that first infield hit or first stolen base.
"Once you get through the first one, it's smooth sailing,” Marsh said. “It's a lot of weight off your shoulders. It's just like, 'OK, I know I can run, I know I can be myself,' so let's do this."