In case you missed it: Turner’s transformation

Justin Turner has a .918 OPS in 383 plate appearances as a Dodger. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)

For images from Tuesday, visit LA Photog Blog.

By Jon Weisman

When you’re 22-10 overall and have won 25 of your past 29 home games, you tend to generate a lot of stories. Here are a few …

• Justin Turner reinvented himself as a hitter after former Mets teammate Marlon Byrd suggested he reverse his past approach and “move his contact point more out in front,” Turner tells Eno Sarris of Fangraphs.
• Clayton Kershaw talked to Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports about luck and execution. Not surprisingly, Kershaw believes his problem has been the latter.
• We’ve talked already about how powerful the Dodger offense has been relative to franchise history. Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs does the work to show that in MLB history, the team is on pace to do something unprecedented.
  

  …The Dodgers, without their pitchers, stand with a wRC+ of 142. The Royals are still in second, at 116. A few things about this. First, the highest team wRC+ marks since 1950, leaving pitchers out:

  

  It’s the Dodgers, and it’s the Dodgers by a landslide. The Dodgers, obviously, have played only a partial season. The Dodgers, probably obviously, won’t finish this season as high as 142. They’ll come back to the pack, and I have to imagine the probability is they won’t be No. 1 on this list come season’s end. But, who’s to say? What’s happened is what’s happened, and it hasn’t all been a fluke. And besides, this isn’t a projection post. This is a post intended to review what has taken place. The Dodgers have basically hit like a lineup full of All-Stars. Not uncommon to see for a few games in a row. Far less common to see for several weeks.

• Thirty years ago today, in the midst of an American League MVP season, Don Mattingly capped a Yankee comeback from an 8-1 deficit with a three-run walkoff homer in the ninth inning, as Chris Landers recollects at Cut4.
• Carson Cistulli of Fangraphs on today’s starter, Carlos Frias:
  

  … Frias, a relative unknown before joining the Dodgers bullpen last year — and still something other than a household name — has recorded both an expected FIP and average fastball velocity both more than 1.5 standard deviations better than the respective means produced by the league’s starters. He also throws strikes at a rate roughly one standard deviation better than those same starters. What this particular game represents is an opportunity to observe Frias en route to excellence. It is, in short, an emergent need that requires the attention of the reader …