Justin Turner reveals the realities of a baseball season
ATLANTA - The Bruins’ fans obviously felt it when that final season-ending goal was scored by the Florida Panthers in Game 7. But they weren’t alone.
There was a certain member of the Red Sox that felt the sting thanks to his own experiences.
That would have been Justin Turner.
“We were at Game 7 and I said it when they lost. I sat there and I watched the whole thing, kind of one of a time coming off the ice, giving (Patrice) Bergeron hugs,” Turner said on the latest episode of the ‘Baseball Isn’t Boring’ podcast. “Man, I felt that last year. We set the record in LA for wins. Best team in LA ever, all this stuff, and you get knocked out in the first round. I knew that feeling he was going through, hugging every guy.”
For Turner talking about the Bruins, go to 31:10 of the following podcast
What Turner was referencing was his run with the Dodgers in 2022, when Los Angeles cruised to 111 regular-season wins, boasting a 90-38 mark heading into the final month. It was the same sort of dominance experienced by the Bruins, who set an NHL record for most wins in a regular season.
Unfortunately for the B’s, the fate was also similar to that of Turner’s Dodgers, who were bounced in their best-of-five Division Series against the Padres, winning only one game.
It’s a lesson Turner was not only reminded of during the Bruins’ collapse, but also via his current lot in life with the Red Sox thanks to an American League East that doesn’t have a single team under .500.
“I think the big difference right now is just the division we’re in,” Turner explained. “I have been on teams where we have gotten off to good starts and have had 10- or 12-game leads midway through May, where you just feel like, ‘Oh, we can just kind of coast through this.’ Which, by the way, is not a good thing. Not playing meaningful games and having that big of a lead is not a good thing. … Every team is playing good baseball. And so that is a good thing for us because it’s a reason to show up and prepare and really be motivated to find a way to win every single day.”