by Cary Osborne
The Dodgers and Padres were playing the closest thing to a postseason series during the final week of the 2024 regular season.
And Mookie Betts was hitless through the first two games.
Both teams entered the series — the Dodgers leading the National League West — playing games to determine who would wear the division crown.
The striking game of the two for Betts was Sept. 25 — four plate appearances, four pop outs.
Because of the magnitude of the series and the 0-for-8 on Sept. 24 and 25, the difficulties of Betts’ postseason past surfaced: Hitless in the 2023 NL Division Series against Arizona and a 2-for-14 run against San Diego in the 2022 NLDS.
Betts on Sept. 26 singled in his first at-bat. In the seventh inning, with the Dodgers up 3–2, Betts drove in a pair of runs to extend the lead to 5–2 in an eventual 7–2 victory.
The Dodgers were NL West champions.
After the game and champagne showers, Freddie Freeman was on the field talking about all the impactful performances in the game. He thought of Betts, and how much his teammate cares about winning and helping his team.
“I don’t know if he’s going to tell you guys, but I watched him hit for over an hour in the cage today,” Freeman said. “So to see him get some results after working so hard the last few days, it’s awesome.”
Betts, after going 0-for-4 in Game 2 of the NLDS on Sunday — including being robbed of a home run in the first inning, stood in front of his locker after the game and answered the difficult questions. The difficulties of the past resurfaced.
And Betts took accountability.
“I’m giving my best. I’m doing my best. Obviously, it’s not good enough,” he said.
The results are certainly what matters most. And Betts has delivered more results than nearly every player in Major League Baseball since he entered the league as a 21-year-old in 2014.
But the recent postseason difficulties haven’t been caused by a lack of trying.
Yet Betts exudes cool and calm — in any situation. It’s a tricky thing. That demeanor can be admired in times of triumph and questioned in times of crisis.
“He cares as much as anyone I’ve ever been around,” said manager Dave Roberts in February. “Everyone’s not wired the same. Just because he’s not throwing helmets or breaking bats over his knee doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. And he prepares relentlessly. And baseball is a very difficult game. And he had a bad three games (in the 2023 NLDS), and that’s going to happen. It’s not from lack of care or lack of preparation.
“You just can’t appreciate (enough) the time that a player, certainly a Mookie Betts puts into his crafts.”
If that wasn’t abundantly clear in the past, it was observable throughout the 2024 season — particularly in Spring Training when he transitioned to second base. Then into the season in his transition to shortstop when hours before each game he worked with coaches and teammates to get the right arm slot on the throw, to master the short-hop, to turn a quick double play. If he made a mistake the game before, he’d simulate the play over and over the next day in infield practice before that day’s game.
He’d be asked and his manager and coaches would be asked: “Is he working too much?”
Betts’ response — an All-Star season that had he not had his hand fractured by a pitch on June 16, he would have had the kind of offensive statistics that measure up with his previous elite seasons. Before he was hurt, he was in early MVP discussions.
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He had another response this postseason. After going hitless in the first two games, he took hundreds of swings before the games in San Diego.
“Hit. Kept hitting. That’s all I’ve been doing. That’s what I know. I work,” Betts said.
And he was questioned about overdoing it again.
“I don’t care about overdoing it,” Betts said. “I’d rather overdo it than not give effort. Pretty much as soon as I get to the park I’m in the cage, and I don’t leave until I go back on the field. And I come back inside and I hit some more. That’s what I’ve been doing.”
Had Jurickson Profar not reached over the short wall in Game 2 and taken a homer away from Betts, we would have been talking about Betts joining Bill Madlock in 1985 as the only Dodgers to ever homer in three straight postseason games.
Two hits and a first-inning homer in Game 3 and two more hits and a first-inning homer in Game 4 now leave no question about Betts’ results in this postseason series.
And no question about how much he wants to win.
NLDS: Mookie Betts works till it’s right was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.