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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Workers Author
LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts spent a part of his thirty second birthday virtually locked inside Petco Park’s batting cage. It was Monday afternoon in San Diego, an off day from an impassioned Nationwide League Division Collection and a chance for its members to separate from it. Betts took the alternative strategy. He swung and swung and swung, exterior and indoors, in opposition to mushy tosses and excessive velocity.
Two nights later, after a series-tying Recreation 4 victory, aid stuffed the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ clubhouse. Their season, unstable because it could be, had been saved. And Betts had been a catalyst, homering in a second consecutive recreation and following with a run-scoring single. Maybe, his teammates and coaches hoped, Betts had put his confounding 0-for-22 postseason droop behind him. Maybe, because the Dodgers put together to confront the rival San Diego Padres in a winner-take-all Recreation 5 on Friday evening, he can as soon as once more drive their offense.
“Mook’s our man,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy mentioned. “He is one among our leaders. He is nonetheless top-of-the-line gamers in baseball. I do know he will get slightly bit overshadowed as a result of we now have Shohei Ohtani, however that man’s nonetheless getting paid $400 million too. He is likely one of the greatest gamers in baseball, and he is been top-of-the-line gamers within the postseason. I do know these final two years have not proven that, however, I imply, come on. Have a look at what he is accomplished previously. He can nonetheless do it within the postseason. I believe he simply wanted to get a pair hits to get it out of his head.”
IF THERE WAS a second that appeared to epitomize Betts’ struggles in latest playoffs, it got here early in Sunday’s Recreation 2. The primary pitch Yu Darvish threw to Betts was a sweeper that didn’t tail far sufficient exterior. Betts adopted its path, lofting it deep into the left-field nook for what appeared destined for a house run. It wasn’t till Betts obtained halfway to 3rd base that he realized Padres outfielder Jurickson Profar had reached over the wall and traversed an keen group of Dodgers followers to safe the baseball. It was an out, the primary of 4 for Betts on this evening. By the tip of it, his postseason hitless drought — spanning NLDS exits in 2022 and 2023 — had stretched to 22 at-bats, tied for the fourth-longest ever by a former MVP.
After the sport, Betts took no solace within the near-homer.
“They’re all outs,” he mentioned of his at-bats. “So, all horrible.”
Hitters sometimes embrace a process-oriented mindset. If a batter noticed a pitch effectively, if his mechanics have been sound, if he met his bat’s barrel with the baseball, he is typically glad, whatever the end result. A lot of a hitter’s outcomes are out of his management — in any case, pitchers dictate the motion — that focusing solely on the selections that lead as much as them can function a helpful protection mechanism.
Betts is totally different. He cares about his course of, nevertheless it’s the outcomes that matter most. A batted ball that ought to have sailed over the fence however resulted in an out would possibly deliver him down; a broken-bat single that discovered house within the outfield would possibly get him going. Early within the collection, Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts might see the stress of snapping his hitless drought bleed into Betts’ at-bats.
“It is as much as all of us,” Roberts mentioned the day after Recreation 2, “to verify he is in a great head house.”
Roberts deliberate to speak with Betts after the staff made its 120-mile drive south to San Diego. He needed to remind him that he cannot change the previous, particularly not prior Octobers. That he wanted to maintain his deal with the current. And that the Dodgers do not want him to be something greater than what he was in the course of the common season. However Roberts by no means had that dialog. Too lots of Mookie’s teammates have been already in his ear.
Their message boiled down to at least one central level: You are still Mookie Betts.
“He is top-of-the-line at it,” Muncy mentioned. “Generally you simply obtained to remind him that.”
BETTS TOOK A couple-hundred swings within the batting cage Monday, give or take a couple of dozen, leaving a few of his teammates to take a seat across the clubhouse and marvel when he could be completed. Because the solar was setting, he ventured exterior to hit off a high-velocity pitching machine stationed atop Petco Park’s pitching mound.
Betts was joined by Chris Taylor and Andy Pages, two Dodgers place gamers who’ve been used sparingly in October and wanted to get reacclimated to velocity. Betts stored his focus to the alternative discipline, repeatedly lifting pitches towards the right-center-field hole, and spoke intimately with Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc after every session.
The 2024 common season was a turbulent one for Betts. He started by transitioning to second base, shifted to shortstop close to the tip of spring coaching, obtained off to an MVP begin offensively, missed almost two months with a fractured left hand, then returned to proper discipline and moved into the No. 2 spot within the Dodgers’ lineup. Betts nonetheless completed with a .289/.372/.491 slash line, performing 45% above league common based mostly on OPS+. However he developed dangerous habits close to the tip of September and watched them spill into October.
A lot of the off day was spent tweaking Betts’ prepitch load in order that his palms obtained again into a perfect “launch place” earlier than starting his swing, Van Scoyoc mentioned. Betts swung till he discovered it.
“That is what I do know,” he mentioned. “I work.”
WHEN BETTS FEELS proper inside a batter’s field — when he looks like Mookie Betts — he tends to elevate the precise aspect of his higher lip, a half-snarl, like a canine growling at an intruder.
Roberts noticed that look emerge in Recreation 3 on Tuesday and took solace.
The Dodgers misplaced 6-5 however Betts carried out. He snapped his hitless streak with a first-inning dwelling run off Profar’s glove — Betts was so satisfied it had been caught that he turned towards his dugout earlier than reaching second base — and lined a single to right-center discipline in his second at-bat. He adopted with a 97 mph one-hopper that was cleanly fielded by Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts and a 368-foot fly ball caught by middle fielder Jackson Merrill.
The next morning, the Dodgers discovered Freddie Freeman, nursing a sprained proper ankle, can be unavailable. With their season on the road in Recreation 4, they’d stage a bullpen recreation with out one among their three greatest hitters in entrance of a raucous opposing crowd. Betts lower by means of all of it in his first at-bat, working the rely full in opposition to Dylan Stop earlier than sending a 99 mph fastball 403 ft for one more first-inning homer. He adopted it with a two-out, opposite-field RBI single within the second inning, setting the tone in what grew to become an 8-0 rout. “I labored exhausting and at last noticed one fall,” he mentioned. “I believe we’re all proper now.”
THE DODGERS ARE the one franchise previously 4 a long time to play a postseason recreation with three MVPs in the identical lineup, having accomplished so in three of the previous 4 years. Betts was joined by Albert Pujols and Cody Bellinger in 2021 and by Bellinger and Freeman in 2022. Now he hits in entrance of Freeman and behind Ohtani, coming off an unprecedented 50/50 season. However there has all the time been a way that Betts, extra so than anyone else, units the tone.
The build-up to Recreation 5 has solely emphasised that time. Freeman got here onto the sphere throughout Thursday’s exercise with athletic tape wrapped round his proper shoe and took half in mild working workout routines. Roberts expects him to be within the lineup for Recreation 5 however has repeatedly acknowledged that his standing can change at any second
Ohtani homered within the second at-bat of his postseason debut and singled in his third, then went on a 1-for-10 stretch earlier than a productive Recreation 4. He’s 1-for-8 with three strikeouts this season in opposition to Darvish, the Recreation 5 starter Ohtani recognized as his “childhood hero.” When Darvish exits, the Padres will confront Ohtani with one among their many lefty relievers.
If the Dodgers are to advance, Betts might need to elevate them.
“We want him, and he is aware of that,” Dodgers left fielder Teoscar Hernandez mentioned in Spanish. “He is labored actually exhausting to seek out that rhythm he wants, that rhythm he hadn’t discovered. We’re all seeing it now. We’re seeing a distinct Mookie now. We’re seeing the MVP.”