For so much of this year, the Dodgers<\/a> have been picking Betts up amid a career-worst season at the plate.<\/p>\n On Sunday afternoon, with a rivalry game and division lead hanging in the balance, he returned the favor with his biggest moment in what felt like ages.<\/p>\n After once leading by four, then watching the San Diego Padres<\/a> claw back to tie the score, the Dodgers completed a weekend series sweep on Betts\u2019 go-ahead home run in the eighth.<\/p>\n The no-doubt, 394-foot, stadium-shaking blast sent the Dodgers to a 5-4 win<\/a> and gave them a two-game lead in the National League West; and had Betts skipping around the bases with a swagger that has been missing for much of the campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time,\u201d Betts said \u2014 since he had delivered such a clutch hit, looked so much like his old self at the dish, and trusted a swing that has frustrated him since the earliest days of the season. <\/p>\n \u201cFinally, I did something good for the boys that\u2019s with the bat. I feel like I\u2019ve done a decent job with the glove. But the bat, I haven\u2019t really been able to help much. So just good to help with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Mookie Betts hits a solo home run for the Dodgers in eighth inning Sunday against the Padres.<\/p>\n As Betts came to the plate in the eighth, Dodger Stadium stood still in a silent, tense trance.<\/p>\n In the first inning, the team had ambushed Padres starter Yu Darvish<\/a> for four runs on long balls from Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages.<\/p>\n But from there, a crowd of 49,189 watched the Padres slowly come back.<\/p>\n Tyler Glasnow<\/a> fizzled after two electric opening innings, leaving the game at the end of the fifth after allowing two runs.<\/p>\n A patchwork Dodgers bullpen couldn\u2019t hold off the Padres, giving up runs in the top of the sixth and eighth to make it a 4-4 game.<\/p>\n At that point, San Diego had the advantage. Their league-best bullpen was fresh. Their closer, Robert Suarez, was on the mound. And the Dodgers were almost completely out of pitching options, having burned five relievers to get the previous nine outs.<\/p>\n But then, Betts delivered. In a 2-and-0 count against Suarez, he launched a center-cut fastball deep into the left-field stands.<\/p>\n \u201cTo get into a good count and turn that fastball around, that\u2019s the Mookie we like,\u201d manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was able to stay through it, back-spin the ball, hit it over the fence in a big situation,\u201d Freeman echoed. \u201cBeen saying it the last few weeks. Mookie Betts is gonna be Mookie Betts. No one here is worried about him.\u201d<\/p>\n That might have been true of his teammates. But for much of the summer, Betts seemed to be battling constant self-doubt.<\/p>\n His swing never felt right, off from the start after a late-spring stomach virus<\/a> that zapped him of almost 20 pounds. His typical production never materialized, with a lack of power or consistent on-base ability contributing to distant career-lows in batting average (.242), OPS (.683) and home runs (he is on pace for only 17).<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how to get through this,\u201d Betts said last month. \u201cI\u2019m working every day. Hopefully it turns.\u201d<\/p>\n When mechanical tweaks and long-trusted swing cues didn\u2019t fix the issue, Betts recently decided to adopt a new mindset.<\/p>\n At the behest of Roberts, and the encouragement of his wife Brianna, Betts began this month by reframing his perspective.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to chalk [this] up [as] not a great season,\u201d Betts said two weeks ago, at least as far as his overall numbers were concerned. \u201cBut I can go out and help the boys win every night. Get an RBI. Make a play. Do something. I\u2019m going to have to shift my focus there.\u201d<\/p>\n Of late, the shift seemed to be working.<\/p>\n From Aug. 5-13, he went 14 for 35 over an eight-game hitting streak with seven RBIs, three extra-base hits and only two strikeouts.<\/p>\n This weekend had been more of a struggle, with Betts going hitless in his first nine at-bats.<\/p>\n But when he came up in the eighth, he had mental clarity. He wasn\u2019t worried about his numbers, or a statline long past saving.<\/p>\n \u201cJust trying to do something productive,\u201d he said. \u201cIt definitely helps to not carry burdens from previous at-bats.\u201d<\/p>\n Mookie Betts runs the bases after hitting a solo home run in the eighth inning for the Dodgers against the Padres on Sunday.<\/p>\n (Carlin Stiehl \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n As the ball sailed out, landing in a left-field pavilion of rollicking fans, Betts practically floated around the bases, giving a two-handed wave to the bullpen, the team\u2019s Shohei Ohtani-inspired finger swoosh to the dugout, and a couple emphatic salutes to both teammates and the crowd.<\/p>\n \u201cTo take the pressure off \u2014 trying to recover from the season and get more micro, just game to game, at-bat to at-bat \u2014 it\u2019s a better quality of life,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cCertainly, we\u2019re seeing the performance from Mookie.\u201d<\/p>\n And as a result, the Dodgers (71-53) had a triumphant ending to their pivotal rivalry series sweep of the Padres (69-55), going from second place Friday to all alone in first again.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just played a good brand of baseball this weekend,\u201d Betts said. \u201cBut again, we still got a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Long before the dramatic ending, Sunday had started like the previous two games. The Dodgers were getting good pitching, with Glasnow striking out four of his first five batters while pumping increased fastball velocity and generating foolish swings with his slider. The Padres were making mistakes; most notably, Freddy Ferm\u00edn getting gunned down by Pages from center while trying to leg out a double in the top of the third, turning what could have been a crooked-number rally into only a one-run inning.<\/p>\n Darvish, meanwhile, made a pair of two-strike mistakes in the first, leaving a fastball up to Freeman for a three-run homer before failing to bury a splitter to Pages for a solo shot.<\/p>\n It all seemed to give the Dodgers full control of the series finale.<\/p>\n In the top of the fifth, however, things began to shift.<\/p>\n Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow delivers in the first inning against the Padres on Sunday.<\/p>\n (Carlin Stiehl \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n First, Ram\u00f3n Laureano lifted a solo drive just over the wall in right to lead off the inning. And though Glasnow got out of a jam later in the inning, his fading command and rising 91-throw pitch count prompted Roberts to go to the bullpen with still 12 outs to go.<\/p>\n In the sixth, Anthony Banda<\/a> gave up one run on a pair of doubles (the second one, a floating fly ball into the right-field corner from Ryan O\u2019Hearn that slow-footed Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> couldn\u2019t track down).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755487994_383_hqdefault.jpg\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/C9JAgqvOTMM\/hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a sight that\u2019s been all too rare this season, coming precisely when the Dodgers needed it…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":154723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[11632,1582,276,90321,2442,1003,6595,2961,90319,224,5337,19020,5349,2749,8037,90320,10201,54514,6601,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-154722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-batter","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-crooked-number-inning","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-double","14":"tag-freddie-freeman","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-late-home-run","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-mistake","20":"tag-moment","21":"tag-mookie-betts","22":"tag-padres","23":"tag-rivalry-game","24":"tag-run","25":"tag-series-sweep","26":"tag-tyler-glasnow","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115047668602407673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154722","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=154722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}