Hits, let alone extra-base hits, had been elusive for Justin Turner.
His part-time role off the Chicago Cubs’ bench hasn’t led to many consistent opportunities. Six weeks into the season, Turner was still looking for his first extra-base hit when he stepped into the batter’s box with one out and runners on the corners in the bottom of the ninth inning Tuesday against the Miami Marlins.
Turner whiffed at right-hander Jesús Tinoco’s first-pitch slider down and away but didn’t miss when Tinoco went right back to the same pitch that, this time, caught too much of the edge of the plate. Turner pulled it down the left-field line to score Vidal Bruján and Nico Hoerner for a two-run, walk-off double to put the Cubs on top of the Marlins, 5-4.
Turner’s heroics were set up by poor defense and timely hitting. A fielding error by Marlins shortstop Xavier Edwards on a grounder off Carson Kelly’s bat and a five-pitch walk from Dansby Swanson opened the bottom of the ninth. Moisés Ballesteros, in his MLB debut, beat out a double-play ball at first to give the Cubs runners on the corners. Hoerner, on his 28th birthday, followed with an RBI single to center field to cut Miami’s lead to 4-3 and bring up Turner, who entered in the seventh as a pinch hitter and remained at third base.
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad you’re feeling, you’ve got to show up and work every day, if you take anything for granted this game will punish you,” Turner said. “Obviously, I’ve been going through it and not going to make any excuses. I’ve got to be better, but at the same time, just got to show up and put in the work every day and finally got a good result tonight.”
Before his game-winning double, Turner was one of only two players among the 306 MLB hitters with at least 70 plate appearances who hadn’t recorded an extra-base hit. The Cubs (25-18) will gladly take the timing of the 40-year-old’s first of the year as they go for the series sweep Wednesday.
Photos: Chicago Cubs walk off the Miami Marlins in a 5-4 win at Wrigley Field
“I felt close for a while now, just haven’t really clicked,” Turner said. “I feel like the at-bats have been competitive, just not finishing with good results. At-bats are going a lot longer than they should because I should be moving pitches forward that I’m fouling off right now. It feels good to move one forward and be a big part of that ‘W’ tonight.”
Despite his struggles — batting .155 with a .271 on-base percentage on the season entering the game — Turner has had a knack for coming through when there are runners in scoring position. Prior to his game-winning hit, Turner was 6-for-12 with seven RBIs, six walks, one strikeout and two sacrifice fly balls in those situations.
“It just feels like he hasn’t had anything fall, just the quality of his at-bats to the eye test is still so impressive to me, especially when you’re not getting at-bats every day,” Hoerner said. “His walk earlier in the game, to take a close 3-2 pitch when you’re not in the flow of the game and everything, those kinds of things are really impressive to us, his teammates.
“You look at a runner on third, less than two outs, tying run on third, there’s no one else I’d rather have up in that situation than him as a guy who’s going to make contact, going to hit a ball hard in the air somewhere, a super pro, awesome teammate, and won the game for us.”
The Cubs’ comeback in the ninth wouldn’t have happened without veteran reliever Ryan Pressly stepping up to record the final out in the seventh and stop the Marlins from tacking on to their lead. Right-hander Julian Merryweather labored in the inning. He retired two of the seven batters he faced, allowing the go-ahead runs to score on Connor Norby’s solo home run and Jesús Sánchez’s RBI single. Two walks and the 30-pitch mark ended Merryweather’s outing to give way to Pressly.
Pressly quickly got ahead on Kyle Stowers and punched him out with an elevated fastball to strand runners on first and second base, exactly the pitch and location the Cubs have wanted him to target lately.
“I’ve got to go out there and execute pitches, been getting pretty predictable lately, so I’ve been working on a lot of things,” Pressly said. “I mean, it’s never fun letting your teammates down, especially the fans too. You go out there and get your head kicked in, you’re not going to sleep anyway, so you might as well get to the field early and start working on stuff. So that’s what I did and been working ever since.
“It’s a really crappy feeling when you’re out there and it gets really lonely. So when you go out there and that happens to you, you want to get back out there as fast as you can, and go out there and start working on things.”
Tuesday’s victory marked the team’s second walk-off at Wrigley Field, where 38,083 fans watched how quickly the vibes shifted as the bottom of the ninth progressed. It’s an energy the Cubs believe can carry through the regular season and could create more thrilling moments on a grander stage in October.
“It’s hard to put a finger on it, momentum in baseball is kind of a funny thing, you can’t really try harder,” Hoerner said. “The bats didn’t quite line up through eight innings, and then you just give it your best in the ninth. But you feel that energy starting to build. And I guess, as a player, it’s the kind of energy that it doesn’t make you nervous. It makes you excited about just what could happen, like, the excitement of what’s possible and just how fun that would be if we made this happen.
“Sometimes it doesn’t, but it did tonight, and it was a blast.”
