Dodgers Team News

Dodgers News: Justin Turner Starts to Swing a Bat

With the lack of offense that has hindered the team as of late, the Dodgers will take any good news. Justin Turner reportedly started swinging a bat this week, so it looks as though he is right on schedule with his anticipated return. He is currently about four weeks removed from a broken left wrist.

Obviously, a dry swing is much different than actual batting practice. But to see him progressing in any way possible is encouraging in of itself. Especially for an offense that continues to struggle in scoring runs and maintaining leads. The Dodgers are currently ranked sixteenth in run productions for the year with 98 runs scored. That is an average of a little over four runs a game. But that number has also been skewed tremendously by two games versus the Padres where they scored a total of 23 runs.

Turner has been an essential part of the Dodgers high powered offense since he arrived in 2014. In that time, he has hit a total of 50 home runs and 193 runs batted in, all while maintaining a 296 batting average. Definitely a key piece in the lineup for Los Angeles.

After catching fastball right on his wrist at the end of March, Turner was estimated to need six to eight weeks of recovery. To start swinging at four weeks is a sign that he could be ready to go sooner rather than later. And that could not come at a better time.

Analysis

The Dodgers are hitting a combined 239 as a team. They’re ranked near the league average in nearly every offensive category and have obviously not met expectations placed on a World Series team. Justin Turner is not an automatic fix for a struggling offense, let’s make that clear. There is no cure-all for a team that simply looks like they lost their fight. But he did hit 322 with 21 home runs last year, and that would make any team better.

Get well soon Red Dream.

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