WEST SACRAMENTO — If Mookie Betts is back, no one wants to proclaim it – least of all him.
“No, it ain’t time yet,” the Dodgers’ shortstop said Sunday after a multi-hit game, including a key two-run single, in a 4-2 victory over the San Diego Padres.
Batting under .200 as recently as June 13, Betts has hit .368 (21 for 57) with a 1.094 OPS in 14 games through Sunday.
“It’s baseball. We can’t say that. It can go sideways really quick,” first baseman Freddie Freeman agreed.
“I mean, he’s swinging the bat really well. I’m not going to be the one that jinxes it either. But he’s confident in himself, missile-ing balls into left-center. … So we’re trending upward. How about that?”
The most Betts will say is that he feels “normal” after two years of setbacks – like the norovirus he contracted at the start of the 2025 season or the broken hand that cost him two months during the 2024 season or the oblique injury that sidelined him for five weeks earlier this season.
It is a new “normal,” though. Betts acknowledges that his rebirth this season has come with accommodations to his age.
“I just mostly learned that all the stuff that I used to do, doesn’t apply now,” he said. “So I really had to focus on who I am today, and trying to fix that person instead of trying to use the 27-year-old guy to apply to the 33-year-old guy. It just doesn’t work. The game’s not the same, and I’m not the same. So I really had to learn who I was and be the best version of who I am today.”
The 27-year-old Betts would spend hours in the batting cage, searching to perfect his swing – the same work ethic that drove him when making the unprecedented mid-career switch to shortstop. The work ethic is the same, but the focus of that work has changed.
“I still do that,” he said of the excessive cage work. “But I think at that time I was just trying to find a cue, to take 1,000 swings with a cue to see if it works. And now I don’t have to take that many swings, just because I’m literally starting from zero every day, instead of trying to use yesterday to try and build on it. I just start from zero every day and build it up. It’s the easiest way for it to become the same every day.
“The hitting coaches really helped me with it. Freddie obviously has helped me with it. But yeah, it was a … collective effort, with this whole thing. I’ve got an amazing team around me, and they support me. Finally got to a good spot.”
Despite the overall worst offensive numbers of his career last year, he turned things around over the final two months of the season when he declared his individual season over and stopped grinding mentally over the failures, instead focusing day-to-day on contributing in some way to each win.
“I think it’s different,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of this year’s turnaround. “There’s a lot more season left than where he was last year, where he kind of wrote it off to play for the team. And I think right now he’s in a much better place than he was even last year, mentally with the swing, all of it. So he’s in a good spot. I see no reason why we can’t keep this going.”
TEO TIME
Outfielder Teoscar Hernandez returned to the Dodgers’ lineup on Monday after missing 28 games with a left hamstring injury.
“I feel good. I feel ready,” Hernandez said before the game. “I feel that I can go out there and produce for the team and help the team keep winning. The team is playing really good right now, so I don’t think they really need me in the lineup. But I’m gonna do my best and everything in my power to keep producing.”
Hernandez went 3 for 14 on a four-game rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City – but all three hits were home runs, one in each of his first three games.
“It’s really good. Not the way it was before I got hurt, but it’s really close,” Hernandez said of his swing. “Obviously, for me, more important is to swing at good pitches. I was able to do that there, hit the ball and pitches that are in the strike zone and not swing at the ones out of the strike zone. I think that’s for me, that’s more important about my swing than anything.”
Roberts said Hernandez will start Monday and Tuesday against left-handed starting pitchers for the A’s and will probably get the day off Wednesday when right-hander J.T. Ginn is scheduled to start for the A’s.
ALSO
In order to make room on the active roster for Hernandez, Ryan Ward was returned to Triple-A. In his first extended stay in the major leagues, Ward was 10 for 49 (.204) with four doubles, three home runs and 11 RBIs in 18 games.
UP NEXT
Dodgers (LHP Justin Wrobleski, 9-2, 2.71 ERA) at A’s (LHP Jeffrey Springs, 3-7, 5.52 ERA), Tuesday, 6:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, 570 AM