Dodgers News: Dave Roberts Provides His Reasoning on Why Justin Turner Continues to Bat in Middle of LA Order
Before the Dodgers season started, everyone in the baseball world, including Dodgers fans were very excited about the team's loaded lineup. The offense has been near the tops in the league on the season, but lineup linchpin Justin Turner has yet to find his groove at the plate.
On the season, Just Turner is hitting just .217 and owns a .634 OPS. He had a hot stretch towards the tail end of May, but on the whole, he just hasn't been able to find it yet offensively.
Despite his overall lack of production, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has continued to bat JT in the heart of the order. Doc explained why to reporters this week (quotes via OCR's Bill Plunkett).
“I’ve seen some life the last 10 days. I really have. The ability to drive in a run, to work a walk or run a count is valuable. So right now, where I see him, I just think it’s justifiable to have someone you can trust to have the right at-bat quality. I think he’s third on our team in runs batted in. That’s still a skill that I value.”
To be fair to JT, he's still providing some punch with runners in scoring position. He has a .508 slugging percentage with RISP and a .286 batting average.
There's plenty of back-of-the-baseball-card numbers to suggest that Turner can turn it around, and based on Doc's comments, he's going to continue to get solid opportunities to collect RBI for a Dodgers offense that has been lackluster in the month of June.
