Mookie Betts night is symbolic of the Dodgers’ ‘we just don’t quit’ mantra
by Cary Osborne
Mookie Betts has always defied logic with his ability to generate power with a lean frame. But what he did Friday is a step beyond.
Not to him, though.
“I’m still good at baseball,” he reminded everyone.
Including the Tigers.
Betts hit a three-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning on Friday — his second home run of the game — giving the Dodgers an 8–5 victory. They are now 4–0 on the young season.
Betts was out of the lineup due to an illness to begin the week when the Dodgers played the Angels in Anaheim in the exhibition Freeway Series. On Sunday, he said he was down to 157 pounds and unable to hold solid food down.
He said he’s 165 pounds today.
“I didn’t lose much strength relative to my weight,” Betts said. “I’m still pretty strong. But obviously, as you add on more weight, you can add on more strength. So right now I’m just having fun hitting 160-pound homers.”
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The first one he hit gave the Dodgers their first lead of the game at 3–2 in the eighth inning. The ball traveled 378 feet but barely cleared the wall in left-center field.
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The next was a no-doubter in the 10th — an inning the Dodgers came in trailing 5–3 before an RBI ground-rule double from Dodger newcomer Michael Conforto and a pinch-hit RBI single from Dodger veteran Will Smith tied the score.
Betts was backed off the plate with a changeup at the chin from reliever Beau Brieske to begin the at-bat. Then he fought off two pitches, fouling them off. He drove a pitch below the zone deep into the seats in the Left Field Pavillion for the game-winner.
Manager Dave Roberts has often said that nothing Betts does surprises him — from moving to right field to the middle infield to returning from a broken hand at an elite level to handling the pressures of the postseason. But this act, Roberts finally agreed, surprised him.
“Just given what he’s been under the last couple weeks, and to still go out there and be ready and not be 100% and still give us everything he has, coming up huge, I can’t say enough about Mookie,” Roberts said. “And just being able to post. He won a ball game for us tonight.”
Betts circled the diamond twice full of emotion. The two 360 feet journeys were symbolic of how far he had come in the last week.
“That was super special. I know it sounds super selfish, but just more for me. I was really proud of myself for coming in and playing underweight,” Betts said. “Not that it’s a big deal to play underweight, but just the fight that I’ve kind of been through — the ups and downs, the nights where I’m just crying because I’m sick. My wife was there just kind of holding me. And so that’s really where that emotion kind of comes from. Then obviously winning for the boys.”
The night had 2024 written all over it, beginning with a ring ceremony celebrating the World Series championship. The Dodgers’ two frontline starters from their postseason run — Yoshinobu Yamamoto (who earned a career-high 10 strikeouts over five innings) and the Tigers’ Jack Flaherty (who no-hit the Dodgers into the fifth inning) dueled. Postseason hero Freddie Freeman homered.
Then the Dodgers showed their 2024 grit, coming back to win the game.
“It is kind of a hallmark of our ball club,” Roberts said. “We play nine innings. We played 10 innings tonight. But we just don’t quit. We keep going. And as bleak as it might look at times, we keep competing and putting at-bats together.”
Sounds kind of like Betts’ week.
Mookie Betts night is symbolic of the Dodgers’ ‘we just don’t quit’ mantra was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.