Being at TD Garden when the Boston Bruins suffered a crushing defeat in Game 7 in their first-round series against the Florida Panthers opened up old wounds for Red Sox designated hitter Justin Turner.
As he watched the Bruins exit the ice for the final time in a historic season that came up well short of hoisting a Stanley Cup, Turner could put himself in the shoes of Patrice Bergeron and his teammates since he had been in a very similar situation himself on the diamond.
“We were at Game 7 and I said it when they lost. I sat there and I watched the whole thing, kind of one of a time coming off the ice, giving Bergeron hugs,” Turner said on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast, as transcribed by WEEI’s Rob Bradford. “Man, I felt that last year. We set the record in LA for wins. Best team in LA ever, all this stuff, and you get knocked out in the first round. I knew that feeling he was going through, hugging every guy.”
Before signing with the Red Sox this past offseason, Turner finished off his ninth and final campaign with the Dodgers by helping Los Angeles set the franchise mark for wins in a season with a 111-51 record. But in the postseason, the Dodgers met a fate akin to what the Bruins went through. Los Angeles didn’t make it out of the first round, either, falling to the San Diego Padres in four games in the National League Division Series.
The defeat certainly stuck with Turner and also serves as a reminder that grinding through a regular season can be a benefit.
“I have been on teams where we have gotten off to good starts and have had 10- or 12-game leads midway through May, where you just feel like, ‘Oh, we can just kind of coast through this,'” Turner said, per Bradford. “Which, by the way, is not a good thing. Not playing meaningful games and having that big of a lead is not a good thing. … Every team is playing good baseball. And so that is a good thing for us because it’s a reason to show up and prepare and really be motivated to find a way to win every single day.”
With the help of Turner, who is batting .265 with two home runs and 12 RBIs in his first season with Boston, the Red Sox have won eight of their last nine games to keep pace in an American League East where all five teams have an over .500 record.
