Program a reminder into his phone. Tie a string around his finger. Chant his name like a mantra: Moo-kie! Moo-kie! Moo-kie!
Whatever it takes to jog Mookie Betts’ memory, to remind him he’s Mookie freakin’ Betts.
Because this Dodgers’ three-peat campaign won’t succeed without his contributions at the plate.
The Dodgers lose the plot without the swagger they’re used to from the four-time champion in their midst.
They need Betts to be that right-handed hitter who will keep opposing pitchers honest in a lineup of lefty stars. To help them compensate without Will Smith’s dependable bat and without being able to depend on $240-million-man Kyle Tucker in games at home.
They need Betts to keep feeding his “hope meter.”
“I’m always trying to remind him who he is,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Wednesday before the Dodgers began a four-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers. “The guy standing 60 feet, 6 inches from him understands the baseball card, knows who’s in the box. And it’s important that [Betts] can’t forget that, regardless of what the scoreboard might say.”
That scoreboard has really not been helping.
All it’s been doing is serving an oppressive, jumbo-sized reminder every time Betts goes to bat of how un-Mookie-Betts-like he’s been for much of this season. Going into Saturday’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers, he has career lows in batting average (.239), on-base percentage (.295) and on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.709).
Unless, of course, this is Betts, now at 33, in his — unlucky? — 13th major league season and seventh as a Dodger? Father Time is inevitable.
But let’s remind ourselves: It’s better to be lucky than good, and that Betts has been unlucky, which is bad.
There was the oblique strain in early April that sidelined him for more than a month. Misfortune that brought back bad memories of last season’s mystery illness that caused Betts to lose nearly 20 pounds.
And there’s the data since his return this season, Baseball Savant’s evidence of Betts’ bad rolls: His .278 expected batting average — the Statcast metric measuring the likelihood that a batted ball will become a hit — is .039 points higher than his actual batting average. That’s the third-largest discrepancy in the big leagues.
Also, Betts’ HardHit% this season — measuring the rate of hard-hit balls — of 38.8%, nearly a 3% increase from last season. His exit velocity (90.5 mph) is a mile and a half more than last season.
The game honors you, and the game tests you.
Early this month, a dejected Betts had as tough a time explaining to reporters why, despite hitting the ball hard and stacking disciplined at-bats, he’d had little to show for it. He hit only .205 in July, with a slugging percentage of .313.
“I’m gonna have to help the team at some point,” Betts said on Aug. 4. “It’s really hard, I’ve just never done this so I don’t really know how to get through it. Everyday I show up and try to restore that hope meter.
“But this is very hard.”
That’s why Roberts has stayed on him, he said, reminding him who he is. And who Betts is, of course, is a former MVP and eight-time All-Star, a seven-time Silver Slugger and former batting champion. He’s a scratch-level bowler who made a virtually unprecedented shift from right field to shortstop in Year 11. There’s not a lot Betts hasn’t been able to do.
We got a glimpse of that guy in this recent nine-game stretch, when Betts hit .387 (12 for 31) with a .645 slugging percentage.
“For me,” Roberts said, “it’s just kind of how he’s carrying himself, really. … He’s always been good with not swinging at balls, swinging at strikes. So those components have been consistent. But, yeah, for me, it’s just I like the swagger, the demeanor.”
More like Mookie.
“He’s crucial,” Roberts said. “He’s got the experience, the talent, and he’s an emotional guy. I say that in the sense that when he’s going well, guys feed off that energy. And, when he’s not, you’re sort of trying to find it in him and get it in him.
“So when he’s going well like he has been this past series, guys feel good about it. So, it’s important … that he’s kind of found something to kind of hang his hat on.”
Put a sticky note in Betts’ locker. Better yet, stick his baseball card in there. Because the guy in the box should understand who the guy in the box is — regardless of what the scoreboard might say.
The post The Dodgers need Mookie to be Mookie appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
