Twice last month, teams intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani to face Mookie Betts instead. Both times, the eight-time All-Star and former MVP emphatically reacted after making them pay.
There was an extra-inning home run on Sept. 3 against the Angels, a game-sealing, three-run blast in which Betts pointed at the sky, emotionally high-fived his teammates and gestured with his hands all the way back to the dugout — seemingly saying, that’s why you don’t pitch to me.
Then, there was a ninth-inning single on Sept. 15 in Atlanta, another game-sealing knock in which Betts gave an exaggerated clap, then pointed to his dugout — as if to say, here we go again.
Entering the postseason, Dodgers fans might be saying the same about Betts. Since that single in Atlanta, Betts had just 10 more hits in the season’s final two weeks. Go back to Sept. 11 and he finished the season in a slump, batting .184 with a .537 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.
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For a star player who has gone silent the past two postseasons, it looks like an ominous trend.
Last year, Betts infamously went 0 for 11 in the sweep by the Arizona Diamondbacks. The year before, he was just two for 14 in another National League Division Series defeat to the San Diego Padres.
Dating to Game 4 of the 2021 NL Championship Series, Betts is batting a stunning .079 (three for 38) in his previous 10 playoff games.
Entering this October in a similar slump started to stir up some familiar dread. People around the Dodgers, however, believe Betts is in a different head space. He might not be entering the playoffs with his hottest swing, but he’s been freed from some of the stresses he carried into previous postseasons.
After all, this season was all about getting “lost in the process,” as Betts described it, from learning a new position to coming back from a broken hand to being able to largely ignore his statistics.
“If you pay attention to those results,” Betts said, “that will tear you down.”
That’s exactly what manager Dave Roberts believes happened last September, recalling how Betts pressed in pursuit of a second most valuable player award and first 40-homer season.
“Whether he admits it or not, he might have been chasing,” Roberts said of Betts, who finished last season second in the NL MVP voting and with 39 home runs.
This year, Roberts saw a different late-season mindset from the 31-year-old, a singular focus on refining the feels in his short, explosive swing and tapping back into his top form.
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“He’s certainly much better off this year going into October than he was last year,” Roberts insisted. “I think he just felt that whatever it takes to get him ready for the postseason is front of mind. Where, yeah, when you’re not trying to chase certain numbers or awards, then it certainly frees you up. That’s just natural.”
It all coalesced in those two games in which Ohtani was walked in front of him — highly emotional, highly productive sequences in which Betts delivered amid the utmost pressure. And the team is optimistic they were a preview of what’s ahead.
“He knows it matters most this time of the year,” hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc said. “He just has to trust himself, trust the work, trust the process. And if he does that, eventually it’s just a matter of time where he’ll go off in the postseason.”
The 400 swings Betts claimed to take in the batting cage last week might have been somewhat embellished.
“But it was maybe a couple hundred,” Van Scoyoc said. “Something like that.”
This was Sept. 26, ahead of the Dodgers’ potential division-clincher against the Padres. Entering the game, Betts was hitless in his last eight at-bats. The night before, he popped out to all four infielders.
“I know I go through those spells,” Betts said later. “But I promise you, it’s not from lack of effort.”
This has been Betts’ mindset since the start of this season, pouring himself into one new task after the next.
There was his switch to shortstop late in spring training, a drastic defensive move that led Betts to spend hours taking grounders in pregame drills on an almost daily basis. Then, after missing almost two months because of a broken hand, there was a rehab process to get back on the field, at which point he returned to right field and was bumped from the leadoff spot to No. 2 in the batting order.
All along, Betts’ production was through the roof. When he broke his hand June 16, Betts was hitting .304 and ranked fifth in the majors in wins above replacement (just ahead of Ohtani). During his first month back from injury (from Aug. 12 to Sept. 10), Betts was one of the majors’ hottest hitters, batting .314 with 26 RBIs in 27 games.
Both times, coaches noticed a balance in Betts’ mindset.
“Him playing shortstop helped distract him and not over-think his hitting,” Van Scoyoc said.
After his two-month stint on the injured list — which effectively eliminated Betts from MVP contention — first base coach Clayton McCullough witnessed a similar effect.
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“This year, you’re not going to hit the career highs maybe you could have, just by the sheer amount of time you lost,” McCullough said. “So now it’s just, ‘I want to get myself right. Because what really matters is what’s going to happen in October, and being on top of my game.'”
For Betts — whose nonchalant demeanor sometimes is interpreted as a lack of passion — it created the kind of environment where his enjoyment is highest and most evident.
“I really just have fun in the process of getting better, kind of putting my brain into more of a training mindset,” he said. “Then, when it’s time to play the game, I can really just turn my brain off and trust that my training prepared me.”
Which is why when he started losing his best swing in the final weeks of the season, he went into the cages ahead of the series finale against the Padres, and didn’t leave until his mechanics started to feel better.
“He loves to work. He’s going to do anything he can to figure some things out,” Roberts said, the day after Betts followed his pregame session with a clutch two-hit performance in the Dodgers’ division-clinching win. “So yeah, it just shows how much he cares. He wants to be great.”
Whether this all translates to postseason greatness remains to be seen.
The two-time World Series champion hasn’t shied away from the pressure caused by his recent October stumbles, addressing them from first day of spring training.
“I gotta come and show up when it matters,” he said then.
Roberts and his coaching staff have emphasized the need recently as well, knowing opponents might pitch around Ohtani if Betts isn’t hitting well behind him.
“He compartmentalizes it,” Van Scoyoc said of Betts’ past postseason failures. “Like anyone, he’s realistic. He knows he’s gonna have a bad series. But obviously, he really wants to be great and perform. And he knows it matters most this time of the year.”
A few weeks ago, Betts acknowledged how such pressure is amplified on a team like the Dodgers, agreeing with a question about whether it sucks the joy out of the journey of a season.
“The expectations placed on us make it the end of the world” if we don’t play well, he said. “If you’re not flawless you get completely criticized … But that’s what we signed up for.”
That toll has, in other years, seemingly worn Betts down by this point, when the grind of 162 games over the summer can be negated by a single bad series in the fall. This year, though, Betts spent more time getting lost in his process.
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“Going in the cage, trying to chase the perfect swing or going out and working on defense and trying to chase the perfect way to field a ground ball or whatever — I just kind of get lost in that,” he said. “That’s what brings me joy, for sure.”
And the Dodgers’ hope is that it will create the recipe for success.
“He’s looking forward to another opportunity to perform in the postseason,” Roberts said. “Obviously, we’re all judged on the postseason. And that’s part of it.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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