TORONTO — The Los Angeles Dodgers’ gamers flew right here late Wednesday night time, hours sooner than their coaches, and arrived at Rogers Centre for Thursday’s late-afternoon exercise on their very own. However Mookie Betts wasted no time. Earlier than most of his teammates might change out of their road garments, he had summoned Alex Name to feed baseballs onto a tee so he might repeatedly hit them into the netting of a batting cage.
For Betts, when slumps emerge, his solely answer is to try to swing his means out of them. The work provides him consolation, however solely success can present peace. And when it arrives — prefer it did within the early a part of Sport 6, when Betts hit the two-run single that made the distinction in a season-saving 3-1 victory towards the Toronto Blue Jays — it tends to imply extra.
“He’s actually exhausting on himself, and he shouldn’t be as a result of he’s nonetheless a famous person and he’s nonetheless a man who’s going to finish up within the Corridor of Fame,” Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas mentioned. “However I believe residing within the second for him is absolutely huge. I’m simply comfortable for him that he obtained the large hit, obtained an enormous night time. I do know for positive that’s going to assist him going ahead.”
One other hitless efficiency in Wednesday’s Sport 5 loss made Betts 3-for-23 on this World Sequence, after which he addressed a gaggle of media members in entrance of his locker and offered the pithy quote that later made the rounds on social media. “I’ve simply been horrible,” he mentioned.
Then he went to work.
Betts spent most of Thursday’s exercise striving to seek out extra stability and a extra snug hitting place that will “let his pure expertise take over,” Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc mentioned. Betts mentioned he wished to “get again to being athletic once more within the batter’s field.”
Earlier than they left Rogers Centre, Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts knowledgeable Betts that he would bat cleanup in Sport 6, a spot he had not occupied since 2017.
“I advised him he can hit me seventh,” Betts mentioned. “I simply wish to win.”
Roberts wished Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith and Freddie Freeman to obtain essentially the most plate appearances with the Dodgers’ season on the road, whereas nonetheless preserving Betts excessive sufficient to obtain alternatives to drive in runs. Batting him decrease was by no means an choice.
“I’m going to, as they are saying, experience or die with him,” Roberts mentioned. “I’m not going to run from Mookie Betts. He’s simply too good of a participant.”
He proved it on Friday, within the prime of the third towards Kevin Gausman, who spent a lot of the first two innings stifling the Dodgers’ hitters together with his splitter. Tommy Edman lined a double in between Gausman’s sixth and seventh strikeouts, after which the Blue Jays deliberately walked Ohtani. Smith adopted with a double to attain the Dodgers’ first run and Freeman drew a stroll, placing two on with two out for Betts, who approached the at-bat searching for fastballs. Betts took a 1-0 splitter for a strike, then swung by way of a fastball and fouled off one other. Gausman threw a 3rd consecutive fastball, this one barely up and barely in, and Betts lined it to left discipline, giving the Dodgers a lead that held up after a miraculous, game-ending double play.
“It felt nice to return by way of for the boys,” Betts mentioned. “Clearly I might like to play effectively for myself, however that’s type of irrelevant. I wish to play effectively for the boys. I really like everyone in there. I understand how a lot we lean on one another. And after they lean on me, I wish to come by way of for them.”
Early this season, whereas transitioning into an on a regular basis shortstop and trying to recuperate from the debilitating virus that prompted him to shed shut to twenty kilos, Betts went by way of the worst offensive struggles of his profession. By the top of July, he was slashing simply .240/.313/.369. When he turned it round shortly thereafter — slashing .294/.351/.478 over the ultimate two months of the common season — it appeared as if Betts would keep locked in all through October.
However Betts’ bat slowed once more. And although struggles have been plaguing the whole lot of the Dodgers’ offense, Betts took it tougher than most.
“He takes it actually exhausting when he’s not performing in addition to he can,” Edman mentioned, “and he simply does every part he can to get out of it.”
Edman has seen it earlier than. A bit of greater than 12 months in the past, Betts was struggling so badly that he locked himself contained in the Petco Park batting cage on an off day through the Nationwide League Division Sequence, trying to will an 0-for-22 postseason hunch out of him. Earlier than breaking out of it — and using that wave to a 1.019 OPS over his final 14 playoff video games that yr, pushing the Dodgers to a championship — one staffer joked that Betts took 1,000,000 swings on that fateful off day in San Diego.
This time in Toronto, Betts joked, “it was extra like 500,000.”
Now, maybe, he can again off. With every part on the road in Sport 7, the Dodgers can have Ohtani on quick relaxation, Tyler Glasnow out there, and maybe Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki coming in after them. They’ll have the consolation of realizing they’ve overcome challenges like these earlier than, most notably using a bullpen recreation to avoid wasting their season in that very same sequence towards San Diego final yr. And, if latest historical past is any indication, they imagine they’ll have the perfect model of Betts at their disposal.
“I’m simply comfortable for him,” Van Scoyoc mentioned, “that he can have a bit of peace and sleep a bit of bit higher and are available in contemporary and assist us win one other recreation.”
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