Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner admits he's excited about the idea of potentially being the team's lead off hitter this season.
"Yeah, I haven't done it in a long time," Turner told Ike Reese, Spike Eskin and Jack Fritz on Wednesday's 94WIP Afternoon Show from Spring Training in Clearwater, Florida.
"Last time I did it was 2019. I had a good year. For me, I've said this before and we all say it, we'll hit wherever Rob [Thomson] wants us to and wherever the coaching staff wants us to. Because we want to win we don't care. If that is leadoff, it's two, three, I hit eight a couple of years ago—hopefully that doesn't happen again. But yeah, we'll hit wherever. And that does excite me in the sense of maybe I can run a little more, score some more runs. Last couple of years I'm trying to drive the ball a little bit more and not that I won't do that if I do leadoff, but getting on first with no one in front of me type deal to leadoff a game I think it'd put a lot of pressure on the other team. Maybe we can have some big innings early on and kind of get downhill early on. I'm excited if it happens, but I'll be excited to hit wherever."
Turner was asked if he learned anything from last season's hot start and then disappointing NLDS loss to the New York Mets.
"I think we know that whoever plays well at the end of the year has got a good chance to win the World Series," Turner said. "So playing well in June, July, and earlier months—it's great because you want to win that division, but It's hard to play really good baseball for eight straight months. Everyone is going to go through a little spell of bad baseball, and different things and injuries and what non. And we had some of those things and it just didn't seem like at the end we could pull ourselves out of it a little bit where in years past we were peaking at the end of the season. So, it's hard, it's hard to be like we need to win this game right now and it's April 20th and then knowing we want to play on November 1st. It's hard to do, it's hard to see the big picture and the small picture at the end same time.
"I like to keep it one day at a time. I like to focus on today...I think that one day at a time kind of deal, as boring as it is, I think that's the only way to play baseball for a long season. Be pretty good, try to win a division, try to get home field advantage and then also play deep into the postseason...I think we're more than capable of beating anybody, but we got to do it."