Brice Turang Had a Slap-Hitter Relapse for a Few Weeks, But He's Back to Doing Damage

Brice Turang had a career night (or something like it) in just six innings Monday night. As the Brewers blew out the Giants, Turang departed early, but before doing so, he had a line-drive double, a long triple, and a pair of walks. If you watched the first six weeks of this season like a hawk and then were extremely busy for about three weeks, it probably felt like business as usual. 

Quietly, though, Turang went through a prolonged slump to end May. A good approach kept him viable—most hitters go through some slump during the season, and his .623 OPS during his is a lot better than most hitters' nadirs—but he stopped being the engine of the team's elite offense. Here, in a snapshot, is why—and why you could see his return to form coming, even before he snapped out of his funk Monday night.

Remember last season, when Turang entered August with a .271/.339/.363 batting line, and then hit .321/.399/.580 the rest of the way? It happened because, at long last, he opened himself up to pulling the ball. The above is his rolling average for attack direction over 100-plate appearance samples. When he stopped being baseball's most extreme opposite-field hitter (not in terms of batted-ball distribution, but in terms of the angle of his barrel at his contact point on each swing), he suddenly became one of its most dangerous hitters. He maintained that terrifying blend of strike zone control, feel for contact and the ability to blast the ball well into this season, too. 

Then, as you can see via the highlighting above, he had a relapse. Turang got back to being, to put it one way, late. Unlike most players, he whiffs almost as frequently on fastballs as on other pitch types. The league's average contact point on balls in play is about 4 inches deeper in the hitting zone than the intercept point on whiffs, but Turang's intercept point is 2 inches farther in front of him on balls in play. In other words, when he whiffs, it's more often because he was late on the ball, compared to other players. Indeed, when he sagged back into being an extreme opposite-field guy with regard to attack direction, his contact rate fell. It coincides just about perfectly with the decline in his overall production.

Ah, but go back to that first chart, and note the direction of the tail at the far right. Over the last week or so, Turang had trended back toward being square to the ball. He went 0-for the week against the Cardinals and Astros, but quietly, he was creeping back into his lost groove. On Monday, he found it again, even though both of his hits were to the opposite field.

It's too early to say he's fixed, but the signs of a revival are here. Turang is a guy whose biggest upside comes when he gets forward more than is strictly comfortable; that capacity comes and goes a bit. Right now, though, he looks like he's on time, and another binge like what we saw for the first month-plus of the season could be at hand.