{"id":132393,"date":"2025-08-09T18:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T18:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/132393\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T18:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T18:40:09","slug":"mookie-betts-is-hoping-to-forget-his-season-which-might-be-turning-around-for-the-dodgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/132393\/","title":{"rendered":"Mookie Betts is hoping to forget his season, which might be turning around for the Dodgers"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 In the middle of the worst stretch of the worst season of his career, Mookie Betts looked back. The Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop searched back to his earliest days in the Boston Red Sox system, trying to reteach himself a swing that turned him into an MVP and helped him slug 30 home runs in a season four different times despite registering officially at 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds.<\/p>\n

Betts tried so much during this prolonged season-long offensive slump.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up to God at this point,\u201d he said in the midst of a hitless stretch last week that extended to 22 at-bats, the longest of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never been this bad for this long,\u201d he said earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Every number would bear that out. So digging back into the past was worth a shot. Everything was worth trying. An old friend, former Dodgers slugger J.D. Martinez, even stopped by while the team was in Tampa for encouragement and a few swing tips; Betts went hitless that series.<\/p>\n

The freefall has continued through August. He hasn\u2019t hit lower than second in the Dodgers\u2019 lineup despite his struggles. With that, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has turned it into an almost daily reminder: His position in the batting order was a statement of his belief that his superstar could turn it around.<\/p>\n

Betts is starting to show signs that Roberts\u2019 faith may be well-placed. He broke that hitless stretch with a three-hit game on Tuesday night against the Cardinals. He added a double Wednesday afternoon. Then came Friday, when he laced his first home run in more than a month to power the Dodgers to a 5-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays, uncorking the kind of swing he\u2019s searched for all year.<\/p>\n

His latest solution: not worrying about his season turning around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis season\u2019s over,\u201d Betts said. \u201cMy season\u2019s kind of over. We\u2019re going to have to chalk that up for not a great season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not as simple as Betts plunging himself into the deepest depths of his slump. Rather, it\u2019s a reframing of his mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I can go out and help the boys win every night, do something, get an RBI, make a play, do something that \u2014 I\u2019m going to have to shift my focus there,\u201d Betts said. \u201cObviously everyone wants to have great seasons, but it\u2019s a lot easier when you just don\u2019t worry about the season. You just worry about game to game. I\u2019ll take this perspective for the rest of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is still too early to declare Betts back, as meaningful as that would be to a Dodgers team whose dominant lineup has instead been dormant for more than a month. Friday was another positive step. He did what he should in the first inning, when Max Scherzer served up a second consecutive fastball over the plate and Betts laced it up the middle for a single \u2014 rather than serve up the spinners and flares that he\u2019d so often hit when his swing has been off-kilter.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the added confidence of a good week channeled his aggression by the time Betts came to the plate in the fifth inning. Shohei Ohtani had extended the Dodgers\u2019 half by pummeling a knee-high slider for an automatic double. When Betts saw the same pitch, he jumped on it, hooking it to left field for his first home run since July 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that obviously there\u2019s a mechanical piece that is real, that he feels something,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut I think for me, from my vantage point, I just think there\u2019s a lot more confidence, conviction in the swings. When the ball\u2019s in the hitting zone, he\u2019s squaring it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s struggled to barrel up baseballs for much of this season but looked like the Betts the Dodgers know, as the shortstop got a ground ball in play to bring home another run when the club broke the game open a little in the seventh inning.<\/p>\n

Betts\u2019 excellence carried the night on an evening all about the historic starting pitching matchup. The fifth career matchup between Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw (nearly 17 years after their first<\/a>) could very well be their last, pitting the two most recent entrants into the 20-person, 3,000-strikeout club as each grayed man looked to show what they\u2019ve still got for their respective contenders. The two shared a clubhouse when Scherzer reached 3,000 as a Dodger in 2021, and have shared a unique mini fraternity with Justin Verlander as the three have jostled for the title as the best pitcher of their generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to play with him, I got to compete against him, basically our whole careers,\u201d Kershaw said after meeting Scherzer in the dugout following the game and exchanging signed jerseys. \u201cI think it is really cool that we got to do this in our first year, and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s our last year, but toward the end, for sure. It\u2019s been a fun ride to get to watch him and Verlander, and to get to compete against him tonight was a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kershaw had to battle traffic throughout, requiring a diving catch from Betts to start a double play that helped keep the damage in an arduous second inning to one run. It was the only tally Kershaw would wind up allowing as he matched Scherzer for six innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe pitched his butt off,\u201d Scherzer said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it was Betts\u2019 swing off Scherzer that swung the game for good \u2014 and provided the Dodgers their most encouraging sign.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see the progress,\u201d Kershaw said of Betts. \u201cEverybody in this clubhouse sees how hard Mook\u2019s working. He\u2019s in the cage all the time \u2026 He gets going, this lineup will get scary really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betts has gotten his OPS back up to .680. It will still be a while before he could get it to somewhere palatable. Not that it matters. But for a Dodgers team that woke up Friday with its smallest division lead since June 15, it\u2019s a welcome sight. For Friday, it was a step forward in a positive week.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting small wins and playing to win each each night, contributing, versus trying to chase a season where you\u2019re not kind of realizing your career numbers,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI think that is freeing, and that\u2019s growth from him, and maturity. But I do feel that\u2019s the best way to kind of go about the last two months of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Photo: Katelyn Mulcahy \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 In the middle of the worst stretch of the worst season of his career, Mookie…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2502,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-132393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115000274028450076","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}