How Mookie Betts turned a Los Angeles Dodgers infielder

LOS ANGELES — It is 1 o’clock on a searing Saturday afternoon on Might 13, three hours earlier than the primary pitch of a recreation between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, and Mookie Betts is already dripping sweat. He stands on the left facet of the Dodger Stadium infield and friends towards house plate, then darts up the center to grab a floor ball. He spins, fires to first base, jogs again into the realm of shortstop, after which all of the sudden he is off once more — ranging to his proper, charging a chopper, making a backhanded play and finishing one other throw.

Earlier than nearly each certainly one of his video games as a Dodger, this has been his day by day ritual. Betts, a star proper fielder who will ceaselessly be a center infielder at coronary heart, takes upward of 100 floor balls at shortstop and second base, a routine that dates again to his days with the Boston Red Sox. It is his manner of sustaining athleticism, constructing arm power and breaking apart the monotony of a tedious season — however on today, there is a larger goal.

Betts is getting ready to make his fifth begin at shortstop for the first-place Dodgers, the perennial juggernauts who’ve been scrambling on the sport’s most demanding place. Betts hadn’t performed shortstop since his first full minor league season 11 years in the past. And but the person who navigates him by means of his pregame work, infield coach Dino Ebel, believes he is already “higher than common” on the main league degree.

“That is one thing that’s uncharted territory, actually, for me, to see any person going from the outfield, the most effective at his place within the recreation, to return up and play above-average shortstop in a serious league recreation, in a giant collection,” Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned. “I simply marvel at how he would not get anxious or nervous taking this on. He has a manner of simply embracing it.”

Betts has made greater than 30% of his begins at both shortstop or second base for the Dodgers this season and can in all probability proceed to take action, until an on a regular basis shortstop is acquired earlier than the tip of July.

It’s each a testomony to Betts’ greatness and an indictment on his workforce’s depth at such a useful place.

The Dodgers let Trea Turner depart by way of free company final offseason and handed on all the opposite big-name shortstops accessible, partly as a result of they needed to attempt getting beneath the luxurious tax threshold — they did not anyway — and partly as a result of they needed to present Gavin Lux a possibility. Lux’s spring coaching ACL tear uncovered an enormous gap within the Dodgers’ vaunted player-development pipeline. No person was prepared to return up and fill in. The Dodgers went into the season with a shortstop mixture of Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor and watched them mix for a .125/.200/.306 slash line by means of the primary three weeks.

Betts, who famously moved from second base to the outfield with the intention to accommodate Dustin Pedroia in Boston, was a shortstop as a young person at John Overton Excessive Faculty in Nashville, Tennessee, and has pined for alternatives to play the center infield in Los Angeles. The Dodgers gave him 11 begins at second base from 2020 to 2022. However shortstop was by no means a consideration — till the center of final month.

Lux was injured, Taylor was hurting, reinforcements have been scant, and so Betts casually broached Roberts on the thought of serving to out at shortstop. Inside a few days, Roberts started to contemplate it. And when Rojas strained his hamstring on April 18, it turned a necessity.

Betts was on paternity depart then, awaiting the arrival of his second little one, however he subbed in at shortstop late on April 20 and 21 at Wrigley Subject and dealt with two floor balls with out incident. His first begin was deliberate for April 23. Clayton Kershaw, who tends to induce numerous grounders to the left facet, was set to begin, and Roberts needed to get all three of his left-handed-hitting outfielders into the lineup in opposition to Chicago Cubs right-hander Marcus Stroman. Roberts despatched Kershaw a textual content message revealing his plan and asking for approval. Kershaw wrote again in lower than a minute.

Let’s do it.

Betts bought 4 grounders hit in his course that day — one up the center, one other barely to his proper and two others straight at him — and took care of them with ease. His subsequent 5 floor balls over the course of three weeks went the identical manner. Then got here his first error, within the third inning of Saturday’s recreation. Betts charged a two-hopper off the bat of speedy Fernando Tatis Jr. and threw so broad of first base that Freddie Freeman did not even trouble stretching for it. However Tatis by no means scored, and Betts charged one other grounder two innings later and dealt with it completely.

This, he believes, is the place his progress reveals up. Nowadays, his thoughts is extra comfortable.

“As I’ve gotten older, I am simply attempting to tackle much less stress and benefit from the recreation,” Betts mentioned. “I have been taking part in it for thus lengthy, and I simply need to take pleasure in it. I do not need to stress about it.”

Getting there was a course of. Betts believes he performed shortstop apprehensively within the early portion of his skilled profession, usually afraid to make errors, and letting failure seep into his thoughts prematurely. He was unfairly onerous on himself whereas navigating by means of his time with the Purple Sox, regardless of a six-year run that included 4 Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers, an MVP and a World Collection championship. By way of his first three summers in L.A., he discovered himself “attempting to dwell as much as who he was.” It is completely different now.

The 2023 season, Betts mentioned, marks the primary time he feels as if he’s taking part in baseball with a carefree angle, the sort he believes has helped him embrace this part-time function at shortstop. He credit fatherhood, reaching his 30s, listening to audiobooks about optimistic considering and heeding his spouse’s recommendation about seeing the larger image.

“I am simply not the identical particular person I used to be after I was 28. I am not the identical particular person I used to be after I was 29. I’ve bought two youngsters, man, I’ve bought a spouse and I’ve bought priorities,” Betts mentioned. “I am not saying baseball’s not a precedence. However, you realize, life — I’ve bought life to take care of. It is what I’ve turn into. You see how onerous I work. I am not not working onerous. It is that when the sport begins, I am not stressing. After I get up within the morning, I am not stressing. I am simply having fun with my time.”

Betts is within the midst of one other certainly one of his scorching stretches, with 5 house runs and a .970 OPS within the month of Might. His slash line as a shortstop or second baseman — he is made seven appearances at brief and 10 at second — sits at .320/.414/.680, and those that know him do not see it as a coincidence. Baseball tends to return simply to Betts, no matter no matter stress he used to tack onto it, and so he seeks stimulation wherever he can discover it. It retains him engaged. Returning to the center infield — significantly shortstop, to him the extra overseas and extra demanding of the 2 — is presently offering it.

“When you say he cannot do one thing, he’ll show you mistaken,” Ebel mentioned. “He loves the problem.”

Turner, now with the Philadelphia Phillies, mentioned he believes Betts might be “nearly as good as anyone” if he performed shortstop frequently. Turner used to look at the aggression with which Betts lower off base hits to forestall doubles and noticed a center infielder’s talent set translated to the nook outfield. It is by design.

“That is why I am going in and go play brief and go do issues at brief, as a result of should you do not use it you lose it,” Betts mentioned. “Go be an athlete. After which after I go to proper [field], I activate all these athletic muscle groups and I can go catch these fly balls and do all these issues. But when I simply stood in proper on a regular basis, I would lose a few of these issues.”

Rojas and Taylor stay superior defenders to Betts however are nowhere close to as dynamic offensively. With J.D. Martinez absorbing more often than not at designated hitter, Betts beginning in a middle-infield spot — significantly shortstop, given the current manufacturing of rookie second baseman Miguel Vargas — creates a path for Roberts to squeeze David Peralta, Jason Heyward and James Outman into the identical lineup in opposition to a number of the more durable right-handed pitchers.

It is not preferrred, however it’s working.

“He has definitely earned my belief,” Roberts mentioned of Betts. “He enjoys it, and he is good at it.”