NEW YORK — Keep in mind Mookie Betts? Whereas a lot of the main target in the course of the Dodgers’ postseason run has been on the inspiring willpower — and sudden World Sequence heroics — of Freddie Freeman within the wake of his ankle harm, and now Shohei Ohtani’s standing given his shoulder scare, the Los Angeles lineup’s different former MVP has put collectively a powerful October. Shaking freed from a multiyear postseason droop, the 32-year-old proper fielder has been the Dodgers’ prime offensive performer so far. In Sport 3 of the World Sequence on Monday evening, he made vital contributions each on the plate and within the discipline, serving to the Dodgers to a 4-2 victory and a three-games-to-none sequence lead, and placing them inside one win of their second championship because the group traded for him in February 2020.
Dave Roberts hasn’t forgotten Betts. “He’s among the best gamers on the planet,” mentioned the Dodgers’ supervisor after the win. “I’m actually excited for the postseason that he’s had on each side of the baseball.”
Via 14 video games and 66 plate appearances, Betts is batting .291/.394/.582. His slugging share, 4 homers, and 159 wRC+ all lead the Dodgers, and his 14 RBI is tied with the Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton and the Mets’ Mark Vientos for the lead amongst all hitters. On Monday, he went 1-for-4 with a stroll and an RBI single whereas making 4 putouts in proper discipline. Within the field rating, that line might look mundane, however in the event you noticed the sport unfold, his contributions couldn’t escape discover.
“I do know it simply seems to be like an everyday baseball recreation, nevertheless it’s a variety of feelings, a variety of preparation,” mentioned a drained Betts after the win. “It takes it out of you, so we’ve received to relaxation up and be able to do it once more.”
Betts didn’t get a success in his first plate look in opposition to Clarke Schmidt, which adopted a stroll of Ohtani, however he didn’t make the Yankees starter’s evening any simpler. In Ohtani’s first take a look at on the plate since struggling a left shoulder subluxation whereas sliding within the seventh inning of Sport 2, he didn’t even take the bat off his shoulder to supply at 4 pitches effectively exterior the zone. Betts shortly fell behind 0-2 on a pair of referred to as strikes however battled again to 2-2, fouling off a few pitches earlier than lofting Schmidt’s seventh of the encounter for a fly ball to left discipline. 4 pitches later, Freeman deposited a excessive cutter into the brief porch in proper for a two-run homer — his third dinger in as many video games — shortly giving the Dodgers a 2-0 lead.
The Dodgers once more had one thing going when Betts got here to bat within the third. Tommy Edman — one other participant stealing the highlight from Betts — walked on 4 pitches, then drew two pickoff throws from Schmidt. With Ohtani on the plate, Edman lit for second base on a 2-2 sinker. Ohtani, who had swung and missed on the earlier pitch, smashed a 104-mph grounder to Gleyber Torres, who needed to accept the out at first whereas Edman superior into scoring place. Going through Betts once more, Schmidt — who had already thrown 44 pitches — fell behind 2-0 on a excessive cutter and a low sinker, each inside. Betts took a up-and-away cutter for a referred to as strike, then fouled off 4 of the subsequent 5 pitches. On the ninth pitch of the plate look, he related with an 84-mph knuckle curve on the inside third. He didn’t precisely drill it, as a substitute producing a well-placed 71-mph bloop into proper discipline that Juan Soto couldn’t attain, a superb instance of the opposite-field hitting Ben Clemens highlighted after Sport 2. Edman received a superb learn on the ball and scored simply, giving the Dodgers a 3-0 lead that put the Yankees’ backs to the wall.
“That was one of many at-bats that set the tone,” Roberts mentioned. “That at-bat, to simply form of win pitches, get down to 2 strikes and maintain combating, to nonetheless drive in a run — we did that every one evening, I believed we took these good at-bats… We did an amazing job of stepping into their ‘pen early, seeing a variety of acquainted arms, and taxing these guys too.”
Certainly, Betts’ plate look — the Dodgers’ longest of the evening — foreshadowed the top of Schmidt’s begin. He walked Freeman on 5 pitches, shortly retired Teoscar Hernández on a popup, then labored for eight pitches earlier than strolling Max Muncy to load the bases. Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone hooked Schmidt in favor of reliever Mark Leiter Jr., who retired Will Smith on a comebacker to maintain the sport inside attain.
Within the the underside of the fourth, Betts made the primary of two glowing defensive performs. With one out and Stanton on second base after a loud double — the Yankees’ first hit of the evening off starter Walker Buehler — Jazz Chisholm Jr. scorched a 101-mph liner to proper. Betts initially backed up earlier than coming in on the ball, then slid to make a diving backhanded catch, presumably saving a run. Anthony Volpe adopted by roping a single to left, the place Hernández made a completely excellent peg house in time to chop down Stanton.
“The Mookie play was fascinating,” mentioned an appreciative Buehler. “Clearly the ball is spinning just a little bizarre, and he form of stepped again for a second and made the play. He’s gained just a few Gold Gloves on the market, in order that’s one thing we form of count on from him.”
“I believed Walker was beginning to really feel it just a little bit, beginning to get just a little bit extra exhausting contact,” Roberts mentioned. “So to make a defensive play on a sinking liner, after which that play at house plate was simply big for all of us.”
Betts’ second massive seize got here with two outs and no person on within the fifth. Buehler left a 2-1 four-seamer in the course of the plate in opposition to Alex Verdugo, who smoked a 102-mph line drive into the right-center discipline hole. Working to his proper and towards the warning observe, Betts left his toes, twisting his physique to make the catch.
That was the hardest-hit ball Buehler allowed after the primary inning, and the final of his 76 pitches for the evening, capping a powerful five-inning, two-hit, five-strikeout effort that saved the Yankees off the board. “Walker is all the time going to indicate up when the lights activate,” mentioned Betts of the 30-year-old righty, who in his comeback from his second Tommy John surgical procedure pitched to a 5.38 ERA, battled a hip harm, and was demoted to Triple-A. Since permitting six runs within the second inning of Sport 3 of the Division Sequence in opposition to the Padres on account of a porous infield protection, he’s delivered 12 consecutive scoreless innings. “That is the actual Walker Buehler,” mentioned Betts.
And that is the actual Mookie Betts. After an MVP-caliber 2023 season through which he cut up his time between proper discipline and second base, with a little bit of shortstop thrown in, Betts started the spring at second, then in mid-March swapped locations with Gavin Lux, who was struggling defensively upon returning to shortstop following a season misplaced to a torn ACL. Betts was hitting .304/.405/.488 with 10 house runs, a 153 wRC+, and a league-leading 3.5 WAR when a 98-mph fastball fractured a metacarpal in his left hand on June 16. He had labored significantly exhausting to rise up to hurry at shortstop, a place he hadn’t performed usually since highschool, however when he returned from the IL eight weeks later, it was in proper discipline, the place the place he’s gained six Gold Gloves and constructed what already stands as a Corridor of Fame resumé. (He’s eighth in JAWS and fourth in seven-year peak on the place, behind solely Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, and Henry Aaron.)
“You need to win, that comes first,” Betts mentioned of the return to his outdated place. “That’s all I care about.”
Offensively, Betts didn’t absolutely regain his pre-injury type, hitting .263/.314/.497 (119 wRC+) over the season’s closing seven weeks. He opened the NLDS by going 0-for-6 by way of the primary two video games, which could have been of little be aware if that hadn’t prolonged his string of postseason futility to 3-for-44 relationship again to Sport 4 of the 2021 NLCS in opposition to the Braves; he had final hit safely in a postseason recreation in Sport 3 of the 2022 Division Sequence in opposition to the Padres, taking an 0-fer in final yr’s sweep by the Diamondbacks.
In the course of the group’s bye week, reliever Brent Honeywell — who wound up off the roster for the NLDS — labored to assist Betts get again on observe by throwing batting observe, an instance of the form of team-first perspective that quite a few Dodgers have cited as key to their spectacular run. “You want somebody to throw reside BP in San Diego? He’s received you,” mentioned Muncy of Honeywell because the Dodgers celebrated their NLCS clinch. “This man may need gotten Mookie Betts proper… When he threw him reside BP, Mookie Betts began going off.”
“I fed him down the center and mentioned, ‘Crank that shit out of the ballpark,’” defined Honeywell of his session.
After coming tantalizingly, confusingly near doing simply that with a first-inning homer in NLDS Sport 2 — the Jurickson Profar deke — Betts lastly received on the board with a first-inning homer off Michael King in Sport 3, and added a single off King as effectively in what was nonetheless a 6-5 loss that pushed the Dodgers to the brink of elimination. Regardless of. Betts homered once more within the first inning of Sport 4 off Dylan Stop, then added an RBI single off Bryan Hoeing within the second inning because the Dodgers cruised, 8-0.
Betts went 0-for-3 in Sport 5, however rebounded to hit a scorching .346/.452/.731 in 31 PA within the NLCS in opposition to the Mets. He collected at the very least one hit in each recreation however Sport 2 (a 7-3 loss), and both scored or drove in a run (or each) in all however Sport 3 (an 8-0 win through which he singled and walked). In NLCS Sport 1 he had a bases-loaded double within the eighth inning off José Buttó that put a 6-0 recreation out of attain, however his massive breakout got here in Sport 4, when he went 4-for-6 in a 10-2 win. Following a four-pitch Ohtani stroll, he singled off Jose Quintana and scored in a two-run third inning that put the Dodgers forward 3-1; mashed a two-run double off Buttó within the fifth; ripped a two-run homer off Phil Maton after a four-pitch stroll of Ohtani within the sixth; and kicked off a three-run rally with a leadoff single off Danny Younger within the eighth.
“I believe that he understands that whether or not it’s a supervisor placing 4 fingers up otherwise you’re throwing intentional balls two toes exterior, you’re going to go after the subsequent man,” mentioned Roberts of the Mets’ pitching round Ohtani to face Betts. “So I believe that Mookie takes it private like all rivals ought to. And I do suppose that stuff like that lights just a little hearth beneath him.”
In Sport 5, when Roberts left Jack Flaherty and Honeywell to take in innings to protect the bullpen for Sport 6, Betts was one of many few hitters who managed to maintain the Dodgers within the recreation, doubling off starter David Peterson following an Ohtani single (each had been stranded) after which homering off reliever Ryne Stanek within the sixth to chop the rating to 10-6. Within the clincher, he hit an RBI double off Kodai Senga within the eighth inning, a part of a three-run rally that furthered the rating to 10-4, permitting the Dodgers to breathe simpler as they counted the outs down towards their first pennant since 2020.
To date within the World Sequence, Betts is 3-for-11 with a pair of walks. He went 0-for-3 in opposition to Gerrit Cole in Sport 1 earlier than Boone’s unorthodox determination to deliberately stroll him with two outs and runners already on first and second; Freeman took it personally, hitting a walk-off grand slam. Betts then went 2-for-4 with a pair of singles off Carlos Rodón in Sport 2, the second arrange Hernández’s third-inning homer, which was instantly adopted by one other Freeman homer.
Large or small, virtually daily, Betts has finished one thing to assist the Dodgers win in October. Now they stand one victory away from their second championship of the Mookie Betts period.