CHICAGO — All Justin Turner needed was one pitch.
One pitch to crush a baseball into the left-center bleachers and send Wrigley Field into a frenzy.
As he rounded the bases, a walk-off hero for the Cubs for the second time this season, the sound erupting from the crowd of nearly 40,000 was almost deafening. Turner heard none of it.
“It’s pretty surreal. You’re running around the bases, not really hearing anything,” Turner said after his pinch-hit, two-run home run lifted the Cubs over the Baltimore Orioles. “I kind of blacked out.”
Turner’s Cubs teammates awaited him eagerly at home, their faces beaming with all the joy in the world. When he crossed the plate, closer Daniel Palencia enveloped him in his arms, lifting him off the ground. Palencia had allowed the tying run in the top half of the ninth, but that didn’t matter in the end.
“He didn’t have to say anything (to me),” Turner said. “He’s been so good for us all year long. I’ll put the ball in his hands in the ninth inning with the lead any day of the week. I’m happy to be able to pick him up.”
That alone is what encompasses Turner’s time with the Cubs. He has 17 years of experience on his resume, and he’s always the one to give a pat on the back in the dugout or say the right thing in the clubhouse.
“Justin’s just so engaged in the game,” manager Craig Counsell said after the win. “That’s why he’s been a great player for a long time. He commits 100% to this role — to helping the team win wherever we’re at.”
The 40-year-old Turner — who on Sunday became the oldest Cub to hit a walk-off home run since 1986 — always knew the majority of his time on the team was going to be on the bench. That didn’t matter to him.
“Craig was like, ‘We don’t have a lot of at-bats for you,’” Turner said of Counsell’s words to him before he signed with Chicago. “I told him, ‘I’ll do whatever it is that you guys need me to do. I did that for the first four, five years of my career. I know how to do it.’”
That first stint was a long time ago. A whole lot has happened in the world since a beardless Turner debuted in 2009 with Baltimore. He’s older and wiser now and he’s soaked up enough knowledge to share the wealth with his teammates. It’s why Dansby Swanson called him “a baseball lifer.”
“Man, what a true pro that guy is,” Swanson said of Turner. “(It’s) being able to help coaches with game plans, helping guys walk through at-bats, hitting with guys. There are just so many things he’s doing to make us better.”
Back in May, Turner tasted his first moment of glory with the Cubs when his two-run double walked off the Miami Marlins. After that moment, his teammates gushed about what he’s meant to them and how much passion he brings to the game of baseball. Even as a long, grueling season trudges on, that sentiment is unwavering.
“It’s fun to see the joy that he has to be here every day,” Swanson said. “He just enjoys being a part of a Major League Baseball team. And I think that’s so special, because being in this room is such a special thing. He’s never taken it for granted.”