Dodgers: Justin Turner Grounded to Begin the 2019 Season

Justin Turner has gotten off to a slow start for the Dodgers this season.  After a spring training in which he tore the cover off the ball, a slow start was not expected.

During spring training, there was not a better hitter on the team than Justin Turner.  He slugged three home runs, hit .457 and had a slash line that was in the stratosphere.  Then the regular season began and while JT is hitting .282, he has yet to hit a home run and his slugging percentage is down at a lowly .310.  While he could be battling a hamstring injury that caused him to grimace in the last serious, the issue appears to be ground balls.

Overall, Justin Turner has a hard hit rate of 50% which is up five percent from 2018 and twelve percent from his 2017 season when he hit twenty-one home runs.  His BABIP is over .350 so bad luck has not been a factor in the lack of extra base hits.  The one area that does stick out is ground balls and fly balls.

Over the last two seasons, Turner’s lowest fly ball percentage was 44% and to start this season, it is sitting at 30.4%.  Another number is his ground ball percentage which is sitting at 41.1%.  In the last two seasons, his ground ball percentage was right around 30% so it appears the reason for the slow power start has been too many ground balls opposed to getting the ball in the air.

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When Justin Turner came to Los Angeles, he worked on perfecting his launch angle and it led to newfound power and helped turn him into the star that he has become with the Dodgers.  JT has openly talked about getting the ball in the air and trying to hit fly balls.  For whatever reason, he has been grounded to begin the regular season.

Last season Turner missed the start of his season due to a fractured wrist after being hit by a pitch in spring training.  When he returned his power numbers were slow to start and then he turned it up around August and September including six home runs in the month of August.  While he is not known to be injured this season, it could just be another slow power start.

While Turner is no spring chicken anymore, his red hot spring suggests he should get back to his slugging ways any game now.  Over the last few seasons, there are not many third basemen in baseball that have been an all-around better hitter than Justin Turner.  With his relentless work ethic, it would be surprising if he left Milwaukee without connecting on his first home run of the 2019 season.