Mookie Betts spent a lot time within the batting cage Thursday afternoon that his palms have been uncooked, the Dodgers proper fielder decided to search out his stroke after his disappearing act within the first two video games of a showdown collection towards the San Diego Padres.
“I took about 300-400 swings today,” Betts stated. “I hit for like an hour and a half straight, and then I hit for 30 minutes earlier in the day, so I hit all day. This matters to me. I want to win. I know I go through these spells, but I promise you, it’s not from lack of effort.”
Betts loved the fruits of that labor amid a beer-and-champagne-drenched and cigar-smoke-filled clubhouse following the Dodgers’ 7-2 Nationwide League West-clinching victory over the Padres Thursday night time, a win that Betts helped creator with a clutch two-run single in a decisive five-run seventh inning.
“I work my ass off every day, and sometimes you just don’t have it,” Betts stated. “That’s why you keep working, because you never know.”
Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts celebrates with first base coach Clayton McCullough after hitting a seventh inning RBI single at Dodger Stadium Thursday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Occasions)
Betts had been in a funk for 2 weeks, batting .170 (9 for 53) with a .514 on-base-plus-slugging proportion, two homers and 7 RBIs in his 13 video games since Sept. 11, and he hit a low level within the first two video games towards the Padres.
Betts went hitless in 4 at-bats with a strikeout Tuesday night time, and he popped out in all 4 at-bats on Wednesday night time — one to second base, one to 3rd base, one to first base and one to shortstop — a feat that one author deemed a “pop-cycle.”
Supervisor Dave Roberts didn’t suppose Betts was urgent as a lot as he was chasing too many pitches exterior the strike zone, however for some, Betts’ struggles started to resemble these of final 12 months’s NL Division Sequence, when Betts went 0 for 11 in a three-game sweep by the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Betts’ answer? He headed to the batting cage for a marathon hitting session.
“We all saw him,” third baseman Max Muncy stated. “I don’t know what’s going through his head, but his locker is next to mine, and I talk to him every day to gauge how he’s feeling. He’s so consistent with what he does every single day, and for him to say I need to be putting in extra work really says something. To see the results immediately was awesome.”
Betts stroked a one-out single to heart discipline within the first inning, successful that “relieved some pressure for everybody,” he stated. “I’m just happy something fell.”
Betts popped out to shortstop within the fourth and grounded out to 3rd within the sixth, the Dodgers unable to muster a lot resistance to Padres right-hander Joe Musgrove, who blanked the Dodgers on 4 hits by six innings to increase his scoreless streak to 18 innings in three begins.
However Musgrove, who gave up 11 hits, struck out 22 and walked none through the streak, walked Muncy to open the seventh. Will Smith pounced on a 3-and-1 fastball, sending a 426-foot drive over the center-field wall for a two-run homer that tied the rating 2-2 and despatched a jolt of power by a sellout crowd of 52,433 in Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers’ Mookie Betts celebrates after hitting a single through the first inning of a sport towards the Padres Thursday at Dodger Stadium.
(Ashley Landis / Related Press)
“You could feel the momentum shift,” Roberts stated. “Musgrove dominated us for six innings, but that walk right there, and for Will to hit a big-boy home run gave us a lot of life. We just smelled blood.”
Musgrove struck out Tommy Edman and was pulled in favor of left-hander Tanner Scott, who gave up a single to pinch-hitter Kiké Hernández. Andy Pages’ bat hit the glove of catcher Kyle Higashioka as he swung at an 0-and-2 fastball for an interference name that put two on with one out.
“That was a huge play,” Roberts stated of the catcher’s interference. “I didn’t have that one scripted. That wasn’t on my bingo card.”
Shohei Ohtani grounded an RBI single to proper discipline for a 3-2 lead, Pages taking third on the hit and Ohtani advancing to second on a throwing error by proper fielder Fernando Tatis Jr.. Betts then hit a two-run single to right-center for a 5-2 lead.
“Mookie hasn’t been Mookie the last couple of weeks,” Roberts stated, “but you could see that excitement, that relief, after he got that big hit against Scott.”
Miguel Rojas sat out Thursday night time’s sport due to a left-adductor pressure, however the veteran shortstop could have had a hand in what the Dodgers hope is a breakout sport for Betts.
“After one of his popouts [Wednesday night], I picked up his bat, and it looked like an old bat that had no more hits in it,” Rojas stated. “So today, before the game, I told Alex [Torres, clubhouse manager] to prepare another bat for Mookie the way he likes it, with the lizard skin on the handle, and to put it in his locker.
“I told him with this bat, you’re gonna come back and help us win, and he went two for four. That old bat wasn’t working. I’m not gonna take any credit because I know Mookie has been working his ass off in the cage to help us win, but that bat had something to do with it.”
