Trea Turner, the Phillies’ 2025 batting champion, was removed from the leadoff spot and listed No. 2 in the lineup the team announced on May 26, a concrete change after nearly exclusive use of him at the top of the order to start 2026.
The move landed amid measurable decline: Turner entered play on Monday hitting.225 with a.619 OPS and a strikeout rate that climbed to 22.1% this year from 16.7% last season. He had started leadoff in 50 of his 51 starts and 226 of his 231 plate appearances entering Monday, but the club’s overall returns from the leadoff spot have been poor — 28th in OPS at.589 and 28th in on-base percentage at.272, with a.214 average that ranks 24th.
Scott Lauber wrote: "Trea Turner down to the No. 2 spot; Brandon Marsh up to the No. 4 spot (and RF); Adolis Garcia to the bench vs. a righty; Edmundo Sosa to LF." That lineup change came for Tuesday night’s game in California against the San Diego Padres, the Phillies arriving there after a 3-0 win on Monday.
The weight of the decision is sharper when set against what Turner did in 2025. He won the franchise’s first batting title since 1958, posted a 5.4 WAR season in Philadelphia and finished fifth in MVP voting. The contrast between that season and his May 2026 form is stark: Turner hit.186 in May with a.496 OPS and a 25% strikeout rate.
Context makes the club’s choice easier to understand. Philadelphia had kept Turner almost exclusively at leadoff despite the slump — a pattern manager Don Mattingly and the organization resisted changing — and when Turner did not hit first the Phillies turned to Kyle Schwarber as the starter in the leadoff spot. Schwarber’s returns in that role have been limited; since the start of 2025 he has hit.130 with a.640 OPS in 66 plate appearances as a leadoff hitter. Justin Crawford, Edmundo Sosa and Garrett Stubbs have also appeared there in spot duty, but the leadoff slot has not produced, and the Phillies’ offense had sputtered of late.
The tension in the clubhouse was always between loyalty to a player who carried the lineup last year and the cold arithmetic of lineup production this season. Mattingly and the Phillies resisted moving Turner from leadoff even as his strikeout rate climbed and his on-base numbers dipped, but the team’s overall offensive ranking from the top of the order — particularly the.272 OBP and.589 OPS — removed the cover that had kept the experiment alive.
Putting Turner second is both a tactical tweak and a clear signal. It relieves him of the table-setting duties that have produced poorer outcomes for the club and gives Brandon Marsh a move up to the No. 4 spot in the same lineup, per the team announcement. The immediate test for the change arrived Tuesday in California against the Padres, a night after the Phillies’ 3-0 win.
The most consequential fact is simple: the Phillies finally adjusted a stubborn lineup decision. Whether the move produces more runners in scoring position and helps a lineup that has labored will be judged by results, but the team has shifted course — a judgment call managers resisted until the numbers made it unavoidable. If Turner regains the plate discipline and contact rate that powered his 2025 breakout, he will reclaim the top of the order naturally; until then, this looks like a necessary correction rather than an experiment.
