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Before the Dodgers became Shohei Ohtani’s team, they were Mookie Betts’ team.
Manager Dave Roberts used to say that as Betts went, the Dodgers went.
Betts was the best player on the 2020 championship team. He finished in the top five in National League MVP voting three of his first four seasons with the Dodgers.
Now, with the Dodgers trailing the Brewers in the National League Championship Series and unable to count on a physically-limited Ohtani to jumpstart their offense, Betts will have to turn back the clock.
The Dodgers scored only once in the first game of the NLCS and each of the four runs they scored in the second game was the result of an error or wild pitch by the Brewers, but Betts can’t be faulted for the lack of run production.
Betts, who replaced Ohtani as the leadoff hitter last month while the four-time MVP was on the injured list, was 2-for-7 through the first two games of the NLCS.
He reached base four times in nine plate appearances.
“Mookie’s at-bats at the top, and what he’s done over the last couple months has been very consistent,” Roberts said. “It’s at-bat quality at the highest level.”
The effect of those at-bats on the Dodgers’ other hitters was particularly obvious in a victory over the Atlanta Braves in Game 3 of their NL Division Series.
In his first at-bat against Braves ace Chris Sale, Betts laid off a slider that just missed the lower outside corner of the plate to work the count full. On the next pitch Betts reached base on an infield single.
“Really just trying to have good at-bats and try to not have a bunch of empty one-out flyouts,” Betts said.
The Dodgers forced Sale to throw 24 pitches in the first inning. By the end of the third inning, Sale’s pitch count was already at 69. In the fourth inning, the Dodgers struck, with home runs by Kiké Hernández and Freddie Freeman moving them in front, 3-0.
The Dodgers went on to win the game, 3-1, and Betts finished with two hits.
“When you’re getting into a playoff series and you get that first hitter seeing pitches, it sets the tone for the rest of the lineup, and also for that starting pitcher that it’s going to be a grindy day,” Roberts said.
Against the Brewers, the Dodgers face an entirely different kind of challenge. The strength of the Brewers is their bullpen.
“I don’t know that it’s super imperative for us to run up the pitch counts or anything because the back end of their bullpen is arguably better than everybody on the team,” Betts said. “Getting to them isn’t necessarily a huge success.”
Unless Cy Young Award favorite Jacob Misiorowski is pitching for the Brewers, the Dodgers’ prime scoring opportunities to score could be against their starting pitchers.
“Really scoring runs when you can,” Betts said.
Betts described the Dodgers as being in a good headspace.
“Nobody is really panicking or anything,” he said. “Obviously we know it’s a tough task. It’s a really good ball club over there. We just have to start one game, one pitch at a time.”
Betts said he didn’t see a reason for the team to be discouraged.
“It’s not like we’re playing really bad,” he said. “I think we’re just not getting the hits that we need to really explode as an offense. One hit can kind of lead to two and then kind of keep us going.”
The Dodgers were also in trouble in each of their last two World Series runs – they were behind two-games-to-one against the San Diego Padres in their best-of-five NL Division Series in 2024; and they trailed three games to two against the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series last year.
“I think just having that experience, that’s kind of what gives us encouragement,” Betts said. “Being that we’ve been here before and we got out of it keeps us in a really good head space.
“Obviously, every year is different, but the same rules apply. We’ve got to just keep playing the game, and that’s really it.”