Trea Turner, shortstop for the Philadelphia Phillies, has yet to hit a home run at Citizens Bank Park this season despite hitting 12 on the road. The unusual trend has left both Turner and his manager, Rob Thomson, searching for answers.
“No idea,” Turner said recently when asked about the lack of home runs at home.
Manager Rob Thomson echoed Turner’s confusion. “I have no idea [why] that is,” Thomson said.
Turner has played 58 home games this season without a home run but still has 23 remaining to try to break the streak. If he does not manage to hit one at Citizens Bank Park by season’s end, he will join a rare group of players. The last player with at least 12 homers in a season and none at home was Jose Cruz in 1984 for the Houston Astros. No player has reached 13 or more under these circumstances since Ken Keltner did so in 1939 with Cleveland. Goose Goslin holds the record for most homers in a season all on the road with 17 in 1926.
“Yeah, weird,” Turner said. “I feel like I’ve flown out to the warning track [at home] probably 20 times or so. But I couldn’t tell you an answer. It’s kind of weird that I have as many homers as I do on the road — and then as many as I do at home.”
Data from Statcast indicates that if all of Turner’s batted balls this year had been hit at Citizens Bank Park, he would actually have more home runs—15 instead of his current total—since three additional flyouts on the road would have cleared CBP’s fences.
Despite most of Turner’s homers coming on pulled balls to left field, his pull percentage is higher at home (40.2%) than away (36.9%). However, Turner notes that he’s making better contact with pitches on the outer part of the plate while playing at CBP—a departure from his usual approach.
“So I looked at my heat zones for home and away, and away I just have a lot more heat zones,” Turner said. “And then at home, I’m just hitting the ball [on the outside part of the plate] really well. I don’t think I’ve ever had that in my career to where — I’ve always been good at pulling the ball and I take my hits the other way — but at home it just seems like that outer third is kind of my sweet spot.”
Turner maintains a .296 batting average at Citizens Bank Park compared to .287 on the road but is slugging only .365 there versus .487 elsewhere due to fewer power hits from pulled balls inside.
At CBP this year, Turner has barreled only one ball to his pull side—a deep flyout that would have been a homer in five other parks according to Statcast data—while doing so eight times on the road (six resulting in homers). His expected slugging percentage (xSLG) when pulling balls is lower at CBP (.453) than it is away (.540).
Despite these numbers, neither Turner nor team management are overly concerned given his past performance; during his first two seasons with Philadelphia he hit more homers at Citizens Bank Park than anywhere else—29 compared to just 18 on opposing fields.
“I think it’s just coincidence, really, because he’s hit home runs at CBP before,” Thomson said. “So I don’t know what it is.”
The Phillies hope Turner’s fortunes may change when they return for their next series.
