LOS ANGELES — Months into an extensive slump at the plate, could Mookie Betts be beginning to turn a corner?
Betts knocked in three runs — including a go-ahead two-run homer, his first in more than a month — as the Dodgers rolled to a series-opening 5-1 victory over the Blue Jays on Friday night at Dodger Stadium. Betts backed six strong innings of one-run ball from Clayton Kershaw, who bested Max Scherzer in a battle of future Hall of Famers.
First Betts made an impact with his glove, diving to his right to snag a liner off the bat of Myles Straw and flipping the ball to second for an inning-ending double play that stranded the bases loaded in the top of the second.
Then came a game-changing swing in the bottom of the fifth, when Betts took Scherzer deep for his first home run since July 5. The two-run blast to left gave the Dodgers a one-run lead, which Betts padded two innings later when he reached on a fielder’s choice to knock in another run.
“I just think there’s a lot more confidence, conviction in the swings,” manager Dave Roberts said. “When the ball’s in the hitting zone, he’s squaring it up. And we feed off of Mookie, and the energy that he provides for our ballclub. And you can feel it in the dugout.”
Since ending an 0-for-22 skid that included the only five-game hitless streak of his career on Tuesday, Betts has picked up an extra-base hit in three straight games for the first time since the beginning of May. With two months left in the regular season, Betts has acknowledged that a full turnaround is not in the cards.
This will likely go down as his worst offensive season by several measures, among them the first below league-average OPS+ of Betts’ 12-year big league career.
In a way, accepting that has been helpful for him.
“My season’s kind of over,” Betts said. “We’re going to have to chalk that up for not a great season. But I can go out and help the boys win every night, do something, get an RBI, make a play, do something that I’m going to have to shift my focus there. Obviously, everyone wants to have great seasons, but it’s a lot easier when you just don’t worry about the season.”
If Betts can put together a strong stretch run, it could do wonders for the Dodgers.
“He gets going,” Kershaw said, “this lineup will get scary really fast.”
Betts is the type to try to solve every problem through hard work, and recently, he got some guidance from his former teammate and good friend, J.D. Martinez. It didn’t spark immediate results, but Betts felt that he took something positive away from being around Martinez.
“I went 0-for-16 when he was there,” Betts said. “So I don’t know that something necessarily clicked in. But mostly it was just some confidence, man. Just confidence in my abilities, and do my best to believe in myself.”
Perhaps that was what Betts has needed most of all in this trying season.
