From shortstop to right field, pickleball to the playoffs, there’s nothing Mookie Betts can’t do
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
The pickleball craze that swept the United States in recent years finally reached Mookie Betts some time around January. It became his go-to extracurricular activity in spring training, during which he arranged for a custom court to be built on the lawn of his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino. The project was finished by late June, about a week after he fractured his left hand on a hit by pitch. It was perfect timing. Betts was quickly able to replace one obsession — learning shortstop, arguably his sport’s most difficult position, on the fly — with another: pelting plastic balls with 16-inch paddles.
“I’m the type of person who can’t just sit down,” Betts said. “I don’t operate that way.”
Betts’ season has been about as dynamic as his disposition. It began with him preparing to become a full-time second baseman, after eight seasons and six Gold Gloves in right field, only to switch to shortstop less than a week before he and the rest of the Los Angeles Dodgers flew to South Korea to open their season. Betts spent the next three months painstakingly trying to pull off the type of midcareer position change no player of his stature had ever attempted, then spent the next eight weeks rehabilitating an ill-fated injury — only to return to right field and settle into the No. 2 spot of the lineup.
When Betts went down June 16, he led the National League in FanGraphs wins above replacement. Since coming back Aug. 12, he ranks fourth in win probability added. He’s producing at his customary level, with a .293/.377/.500 slash line, 19 home runs and 16 stolen bases in 111 games. But his value to this year’s Dodgers has been marked by acquiescence and proficiency. He moved out of leadoff, a spot where he’d made 80% of his career starts, and helped pave the way for Shohei Ohtani‘s unprecedented 50/50 season. And he moved all over the field to accommodate the Dodgers’ roster construction.
“I don’t think you can quantify the value of his willingness to move around the diamond,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You just don’t see superstars willing to put themselves out there to potentially fail. And there’s no place on the diamond that you probably can get exposed more than at shortstop.”
There’s a part of Betts that misses shortstop. Misses sweating through those early afternoon hours while repeatedly taking ground balls from every conceivable angle. Misses sitting on the grass with coaches and analyzing his footwork on a tablet that recorded his every move. Misses peppering veteran shortstop Miguel Rojas with questions about how to handle the multitude of situations that come up in a game. Misses immersing himself in something new and exciting and difficult.
“I had the time of my life,” Betts, 31, said.
He also learned something about himself.
“I’m a lot stronger than I thought. I can do more things than I thought.”
Betts had spent much of his time in L.A. longing to return to second base, where he spent most of his time in the minor leagues. He finally got his wish heading into the 2024 season, with Jason Heyward looking like a sensible option for semi-regular playing time in right field. But then Gavin Lux‘s throwing issues re-emerged in the wake of knee surgery, and suddenly, a handful of days into March, the Dodgers were left scrambling.
The only way they could preserve their most talented lineup was for Betts to somehow learn shortstop — for a future Hall of Famer to open himself up to criticism and make himself vulnerable at the height of his powers.
Betts saw it as an opportunity to face a fear.
“On the other side of that fear and all the criticism is bliss, beautifulness,” Betts said. “That’s where my brain was — ‘Get through all this. Once you get through it, it’s going to be great.'”
Betts is often self-deprecating and at times even self-loathing, a trait that has helped him unlock athletic greatness at 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds. His foray into shortstop, a task that satiated his constant need for challenges, brought out the most extreme versions of his meticulousness. But the difficulty of it, and the scrutiny that surrounded it, helped him find balance.
“I wasn’t going to be self-critical while everybody else was, too,” Betts said. “It wasn’t going to be me and everybody else against me, that’s for damn sure. It was going to be me against the world at that point. That’s the thing I really learned — how to be my own cheerleader. How to be my own best friend.”
Betts committed nine errors in 61 starts at shortstop, all but one of which were the result of throws. Some of the advanced metrics did not grade him out favorably. But he was adequate. And he was steadily improving. And if he continued to hone in on the footwork required to make throws from certain angles, Dodgers infield coach Dino Ebel believes, he could have vied for a Gold Glove there eventually.
“Unfortunately we didn’t get to that part, but I think we were on our way, man,” Betts said. “I’m just proud of myself for accepting the challenge that comes with it.”
If not for the 98-mph fastball that ran in on his hands in the middle of June, Betts could have remained at shortstop and perhaps even given Ohtani a run for the MVP. But Betts didn’t spend much time lamenting the injury. He appreciated the rare time it provided with his family; how it helped him get closer to his 17-month-old son, Kaj. And he cherished all the pickleball he got to play with his wife, Brianna, a quasi-tradition they’ve maintained after home games throughout the season.
By the time Betts was healthy enough to return, Ohtani was thriving in the leadoff spot and Roberts began to see the benefit of using the right-handed-hitting Betts to split up the lefty-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman at the top of his lineup. At that point, Rojas, the best defensive shortstop on the team, was in the midst of a career year offensively, Lux had completely turned his season around while solidifying himself at second base and Heyward’s bat had slowed.
“The thing that keeps Mookie going are certain challenges,” Roberts said, “but I do think he is smart enough to understand the roster, the landscape of our ballclub and what makes sense for our ballclub. And at that point in time, it was clear that he needed to go to right field.”
Given the uncertainty of their starting rotation — Tyler Glasnow and Gavin Stone are out; Clayton Kershaw is still on the mend; Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler have each had their struggles — the Dodgers will probably have to win with offense in October. And Betts will have to be a catalyst. Encouraging signs have emerged lately.
Twice, an opponent has chosen to intentionally walk Ohtani to instead pitch to Betts. Twice, Betts has made them pay — with a three-run homer in the 10th inning from Angel Stadium on Sept. 3 and a ninth-inning, go-ahead single from Atlanta on Sept. 15. Seven days later, in a come-from-behind win against the Colorado Rockies, Betts hit his first walk-off home run as a Dodger immediately after Ohtani tied the score in the ninth.
Betts has thrived in high-leverage moments throughout his career, though he has accumulated just two hits in 25 at-bats over the past two division series — both of which ended in stunning elimination. This year, he believes, there’s a certain ease with which he navigates stressful situations. He trusts his preparation and lives with the results of it, sparing himself the second-guessing. It’s a shift.
“This is all definitely learned,” Betts said. “I used to be way more hard on myself. ‘I got to get ready for hitting second.’ ‘I got to get ready to play shortstop.’ ‘I got to do this.’ ‘I got to do that.'”
Perhaps it was a fear of failure. Perhaps, as Betts said, “It was not looking far enough through that fear to get to the other side.
“Now I’m a little older. Now I understand that whatever fears there are, man, I’m facing them dead-on.”
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Aside from his ability to pitch and hit and stretch the boundaries of imagination, Shohei Ohtani has displayed another singular trait in his time in the major leagues: an ability to meet the moment. Or, perhaps, for the moment to meet him.
And so on Wednesday night, with his Los Angeles Dodgers looking to stay unbeaten, the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, and more than 50,000 fans standing and clenching the Ohtani bobbleheads they lined up hours in advance for, Ohtani approached the batter’s box — and his teammates expected greatness.
“He’s going to end this right here,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said he thought to himself.
“We knew,” starting pitcher Blake Snell said. “It’s just what he does.”
Validation came instantly. Ohtani stayed back on a first-pitch changeup from Raisel Iglesias near the outside corner and shot it toward straightaway center field, 399 feet away, for a walk-off home run, sending the Dodgers to a 6-5, come-from-behind victory over the reeling Atlanta Braves.
“I don’t think anybody didn’t expect him to hit a walk-off home run there,” Dodgers utility man Tommy Edman said. “It’s just a question of where he’d hit it.”
The Dodgers are now 8-0, topping the 1933 New York Yankees of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth for the longest winning streak to begin a season for a reigning champion. The Braves, meanwhile, are 0-7, the type of record no team has ever recovered from to make the playoffs. And Ohtani, with three home runs and a 1.126 OPS this season, just keeps meeting moments.
“He’s pretty good, huh?” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said. “It’s Shohei. He’s going to do that. He’s going to do things better than that.”
On Aug. 23 last year, Ohtani reached the 40/40 club with a walk-off grand slam. Five days later, the Dodgers staged a second giveaway of his bobblehead — one that saw his now-famous dog, Decoy, handle the ceremonial first pitch — and Ohtani led off with a home run. On Sept. 19, Ohtani clinched his first postseason berth and ascended into the unprecedented 50/50 club with one of the greatest single-game performances in baseball history — six hits, three homers, two steals and 10 RBIs. Barely two weeks later, he homered in his first playoff game.
When Ohtani came up on Wednesday, he had what he described as a simple approach.
“I was looking for a really good pitch to hit,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “If I didn’t get a good pitch to hit, I was willing to walk.”
Of course, though, he got a good pitch.
And, of course, he sent it out.
“You just feel that he’s going to do something special,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I just like the way he’s not pressing. He’s in the strike zone, and when he does that, there’s just no one better.”
The Dodgers began their much-anticipated season with a couple of breezy wins over the Chicago Cubs from Japan, even though Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman did not play in them. They returned home, brought iconic rapper Ice Cube out to present the World Series trophy on one afternoon, received their rings on another and swept a three-game series against the Detroit Tigers. Then came the Braves, and the Dodgers swept them, too — even though Freeman, nursing an ankle injury caused from slipping in the shower, didn’t participate.
The Dodgers already have two walk-offs and six comeback wins this season.
Wednesday’s effort left Roberts “a little dumbfounded.”
A nightmarish start defensively, highlighted by two errant throws from Muncy, spoiled Snell’s start and put them behind 5-0 after the first inning and a half. But the Dodgers kept inching closer. They trailed by just two in the eighth and put runners on second and third with two out. Muncy came to bat with his batting average at just .083. He had used the ballyhooed “Torpedo” bat for his first three plate appearances, didn’t like how it altered his swing plane, grabbed his usual bat for a showdown against Iglesias and laced a game-tying double into the right-center-field gap.
An inning later, Ohtani ended it.
“Overall, not just tonight, there is a really good vibe within the team,” Ohtani said after recording his fourth career walk-off hit. “I just think that’s allowing us to come back in these games to win.”
The Dodgers’ 8-0 start has allowed them to stay just ahead of the 7-0 San Diego Padres and the 5-1 San Francisco Giants in the National League West. Tack on the Arizona Diamondbacks (4-2) and the Colorado Rockies (1-4), and this marks the first time in the divisional era that an entire division has combined for at least 25 wins and no more than seven losses, according to ESPN Research. The Dodgers’ and Padres’ starts mark just the fifth season in major league history with multiple teams starting 7-0 or better, and the first time since 2003.
The Dodgers famously overcame a 2-1 series deficit to vanquish the Padres in the NL Division Series last year, then rode that fight to their first full-season championship since 1988.
That fight hasn’t let up.
“It feels like this clubhouse is carrying a little bit of the attitude we had last year that we’re never out of a game and we’re resilient, and we’ve been carrying it into this season,” Muncy said. “It’s been fun to watch. The guys don’t give up. Bad things have happened, and no one’s really been down or out on themselves. Everyone’s just, ‘All right, here we go, next inning, let’s get after it.’ The whole team, top to bottom, has been doing that. It’s been making it really, really fun to play.”
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