Rob Thomson shakes up Phillies lineup in bid to spark Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos

PITTSBURGH — It was not a long conversation because there wasn’t much to say. Late Friday night, Rob Thomson asked Trea Turner to see him. The Phillies manager was moving Turner down in the lineup, to seventh, the lowest he had hit in more than five years.

Turner, having a career-worst season in the first year of a $300 million contract, understood.

“That was about it,” Turner said Saturday after a deflating 7-6 loss to the Pirates. “That was the conversation. I’m here to play baseball. I don’t make the lineup. It’s not part of my job. I want to do my job better. If I did my job better, then I wouldn’t have that conversation.”

Thomson treats his lineups as a sacred thing. They are a tool to gain the trust of the players. A manager who is quick to make changes gets a reputation in clubhouses as someone who panics. Thomson is loyal, so this was a rather significant decision. “I think it was just time — just to let him breathe a little bit and relax,” Thomson said. “He’s trying to do too much.” That can be said of others in the Phillies’ lineup, and that is why this is so tricky for Thomson to navigate.

He replaced Turner in the No. 2 spot with Nick Castellanos, who is trapped in a horrific slump this month. Right now, making a Phillies lineup is like playing Jenga blindfolded. The Phillies scored six runs Saturday night but had 18 runners on base.

They should have scored more.

Thomson will not continue to juggle — at least until the Phillies swing a trade that could add a complementary right-handed hitter to the lineup. He likes Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott, who hit fourth and fifth, respectively, right there. “Because they’re going to put the ball in play with runners in scoring position,” Thomson said. That’s reasonable. So is Thomson’s thinking for having Castellanos hit second: Maybe, with Bryce Harper behind him, he could see better pitches to hit.

Castellanos is not helping matters.

“Well,” he said, “I think teams are just not wanting to throw me strikes because I’m anxious and I want to hit so bad that I’m not letting myself get anything to hit.”

It’s a harsh — and accurate — self-assessment. Castellanos is batting .118/.157/.188 in his past 89 plate appearances (since July 4). He has struck out 33 times and walked twice in that stretch. He saw 18 pitches in five plate appearances as he went hitless Saturday night. He swung 11 times. He whiffed on six of those.

“Just been no good, man,” Castellanos said. “Honestly. Hard time just finding that consistent rhythm since the second half (started). It’s been bad.”

For the season’s first three months, Castellanos was the Phillies’ most consistent hitter. He resisted chasing the breaking balls down and away — the pitch that tormented him for all of 2022. He has fallen into bad habits. A slump is a slump. He’s been better in 2023 and there are reasons to believe he can emerge from this darkness.

But it’s hard.

“Sometimes, I find myself in a hole and I want to get out of it,” Castellanos said. “The harder I try, the deeper I get. But just have to stay at it and stay working.”

Is he pressing?

“I don’t think Nick ever presses,” Thomson said. “I don’t think he presses. I just think his timing is off a little bit.”

Turner is pressing. Everyone knows it. He is hitting .242/.295/.379, and those are unthinkable numbers for a player who was among the sport’s most dynamic before 2023. Thomson, during his brief meeting with Turner, emphasized that the shortstop can help the Phillies in different ways. It’s not going to feel right overnight.

Will batting seventh help him?

“I think it could help the team, maybe,” said Turner, who went 1-for-3 on Saturday with a walk. “Me, personally, I think you just have to put together good at-bats and swing at good pitches. Build some momentum. I don’t think it matters where I hit.”

Turner is chasing something bigger than pitches out of the zone. There were expectations that came with a mega-contract, and those have had an effect on him. The numbers are not going to look good at the end of the season — no matter what he does in August and September. He wants to, in his words, “Stack good days on top of each other.” But it’s hard to ignore the hole he’s dug.

That’s human nature.

“I think my worst season was 2018 and I would take that year way over this year,” Turner said. “So, yeah, I never really thought we’d be here, but we are and it is what it is. Gotta grind it out. Can’t get it all back in one day. Build on small things and try to win us ballgames.”

The Phillies could have still won Saturday even with a poor Aaron Nola start and horrendous defense and runners stranded everywhere. That’s the upside. Maybe a trade or two will help. Two righty-hitting outfielders the Phillies like — Colorado’s Randal Grichuk and New York’s Tommy Pham — homered Saturday. An external addition won’t solve everything because that onus will fall to the many talented (and high-priced) players the Phillies have collected.

Turner has embraced a mentality that Kevin Long, the veteran hitting coach, has preached. The stars are mere pieces to this puzzle. “It’s not an individual sport,” Turner said. “It’s a team sport. I can definitely change games and help the team win. … It’s about winning. That’s why I’m here.” This was Thomson’s message, too.

Internalizing that is more important than wherever Turner bats in the lineup.

“I think he understood,” Thomson said. “I think he’s disappointed — not because he’s hitting seventh, but because he’s not producing like he expects himself to.”

(Top photo of Nick Castellanos and Trea Turner last week in Cleveland: Nick Cammett / Diamond Images via Getty Images)