SAN DIEGO — On Tuesday night time, one among Main League Baseball’s finest home-field benefits was fulfilling its status. Each Recreation 3 miscue from the Dodgers appeared to ask one other. It felt like Petco Park was suffocating the opponent. Twenty-four hours later, one other file crowd stuffed the seats, anticipating to proceed the celebration. One win away from slaying the dragon to the north once more within the Nationwide League Division Collection, Padres followers have been able to celebration prefer it was 2022.Â
As an alternative, they have been by no means given a cause.Â
Mookie Betts helped make sure that of it, rising from his postseason doldrums and discovering his self-belief once more in an 8-0 win that saved the Dodgers’ season.Â
“My teammates did a tremendous job attempting to place confidence, instill confidence in me,” Betts mentioned. “I needed to flip off all social media as a result of that was all detrimental, and I needed to get some optimistic vibes in me.”
Currently, they’d been laborious to come back by.
Betts entered this week hitless in his previous 22 postseason at-bats and 2-for-31 relationship again to the beginning of the 2022 NLDS. In that point, the Dodgers have been 2-7 in playoff video games.Â
Within the midst of the drought, Betts’ teammates tried to maintain his spirits up. To remind the eight-time All-Star of who he’s.Â
“Mook’s our man,” Max Muncy mentioned. “He is one among our leaders. He is nonetheless the most effective gamers in baseball. I do know he will get slightly bit overshadowed as a result of we have got Shohei Ohtani, however [Betts] continues to be getting paid $400 million, too. He is likely one of the finest gamers in baseball, and he is been the most effective gamers within the postseason. I do know his final two years have not proven that, however I imply, c’mon, take a look at what he is carried out up to now. He can nonetheless do it.”Â
In 2018, Betts helped information the Purple Sox to a World Collection championship in an MVP season. Two years later, in his first week with the Dodgers, on the primary day of full-squad spring coaching exercises, Betts challenged his new teammates to be extra accountable for his or her effort and to deal with each apply rep prefer it was the World Collection. The speech set the tone for an additional championship season. Â
Throughout the Dodgers’ 2020 short-season title run, Betts had an .871 playoff OPS within the playoffs and tallied 4 extra-base hits within the World Collection, together with a house run within the deciding Recreation 6. The next yr, he hit .458 within the NLDS towards the Giants and completed the collection with a four-hit efficiency in a do-or-die Recreation 5 that helped propel the Dodgers ahead. Their street ended towards the Braves within the Nationwide League Championship Collection, the place Betts’ struggles started.Â
By the point he stepped to the plate in San Diego this week, Betts was within the midst of a 3-for-44 playoff stoop. No person needed to remind him.Â
“I do know it is there,” Betts mentioned.Â
Supervisor Dave Roberts may inform it was beginning to seep into Betts’ psyche on the plate.Â
“It is as much as all of us to guarantee that he is in a superb headspace to go on the market and compete and never get too frightened about every explicit at-bat,” Roberts mentioned.Â
Muncy, and others, have tried to play their half.Â
“After they stroll Sho to pitch to him, when he will get a giant hit, I inform him, I say, ‘Hey, you receives a commission $400 [million] too, bro,'” Muncy mentioned. “‘You are getting paid $400 [million] too. You are still the most effective gamers.’ Typically, you’ve got simply received to get reminded of it.”Â
For a number of seconds Sunday at Dodger Stadium, Betts appeared to show a nook.Â
Within the first inning of Recreation 2, he lifted a deep drive that carried 354 toes to left area. It might have been a house run in 19 ballparks. Fooled by Jurickson Profar’s histrionics, it was not till Betts was midway between second and third base that he realized Profar had secured the catch. Betts would go hitless the remainder of the night time and take his skid with him to San Diego.
Decided to work his approach out of the stoop, Betts celebrated his thirty second birthday on Monday in a batting cage, swinging a whole lot and a whole lot of occasions in San Diego on the Dodgers’ exercise day earlier than Recreation 3.Â
“You guys simply see that,” Muncy mentioned. “We have seen the final month. That is been the work and the preparation he is had each single day.”
He hit inside. He hit exterior. Fairly than take time away from the grind to attempt to clear his head, Betts thought the one approach out was by way of. If he turned his mind off, Betts figured, his struggles would solely worsen.Â
“I’ve seen him take swings the place it appears nice to me, and for no matter cause he simply says it would not really feel the best way it ought to,” Tommy Edman mentioned. “However, he is simply received a excessive commonplace for what his swing ought to really feel like. He is one of many hardest employees I’ve performed with.”
So, Betts continued tinkering, looking for the fitting really feel.Â
Swing after swing after swing.Â
“I do not care about overdoing it,” Betts mentioned. “I would somewhat overdo it than not give effort. Just about as quickly as I get to the park, I am within the cage, and I do not go away till I am going again on the sector. And I come again inside, and I hit some extra. That is what I have been doing.”
On Tuesday, the work lastly yielded manufacturing.Â
Given what had preceded Recreation 3, you could not blame him for being incredulous when he lastly broke out.Â
Within the first inning of the primary recreation after the most effective catch of Profar’s life, Betts offered one other alternative for a theft. It regarded like a reproduction of his swing at Dodger Stadium. Once more, Profar reached into the stands, extending his arm over the quick wall at Petco Park. Betts was so certain the Padres left fielder had the ball and was trolling once more that he started jogging again towards his dugout after rounding first. He was close to the pitcher’s mound earlier than he realized Profar did not make the play. Betts darted again to the baseline and continued his residence run trot.Â
The sport would quickly unravel on the Dodgers. A Teoscar Hernández grand slam couldn’t forestall them from being pushed to the brink.Â
However there was an necessary silver lining.Â
“I believe I simply wanted to see one fall, man,” Betts mentioned.Â
He completed with a two-hit night time, then one other on Wednesday.Â
“It is form of like successful right here, successful there, they construct that momentum and maintain constructing that momentum over time,” Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates mentioned. “He slowly builds it, and it stays for some time.”Â
In Recreation 4, Betts went deep in his first at-bat of the sport for the second straight day. This time, there was no hesitating on his trot across the bases. Betts received all of a 403-foot blast to left-center.Â
“If he is going,” Hernández mentioned, “everyone’s going to comply with.”
That is what came about in Wednesday’s eight-run trouncing. The following inning, Ohtani knocked in a run with an RBI single. Betts adopted with one other RBI knock. The celebs atop the lineup began the day a mixed 3-for-4 with three RBI, and Betts had lastly discovered one thing of a groove.Â
“He is aware of who he’s,” mentioned reliever Daniel Hudson, who threw a scoreless inning within the Dodgers’ Recreation 4 shutout. “However this can be a actually, actually laborious recreation, and hitting’s even more durable than my aspect of it. I believe typically he is usually a little bit powerful on himself. So, to see him come out these final two video games and get some huge hits for us, hopefully slightly little bit of a weight off his shoulders, and he can go on the market and simply be Mookie.”
All of a sudden, hits got here in bunches: a Muncy double, a Will Smith two-run homer. By the tip of the third inning, the Dodgers led 5-0 and already had extra hits than both of the earlier two video games.Â
Within the course of, they eliminated one among San Diego’s biggest belongings.Â
The “beat L.A.” chants that had simply burst with vigor, boosting the Padres by way of a nail-biting Recreation 3 victory, out of the blue sounded extra like a plea. The 2024 Dodgers, with their season on the road, wouldn’t fold lifelessly the best way they’d of their first-round exits the previous two years.Â
On Wednesday, they didn’t have Miguel Rojas, whose torn adductor pressured him out of Recreation 3 early. They didn’t have Freddie Freeman, who received a time off for his sprained ankle. (The Dodgers made that decision throughout a crew breakfast the morning of Recreation 4.) They didn’t have a beginning pitcher, both, going to a bullpen recreation whereas going through elimination.Â
However they did have Betts, the six-time Silver Slugger who began to resemble the participant who was on an MVP monitor this season earlier than a damaged hand sidelined him for 2 months.Â
“I believe all of us knew Mookie was going to be Mookie,” Freeman mentioned.Â
Simply as necessary, with the collection shifting to a winner-take-all matchup Friday in Los Angeles, Betts may need reminded himself, too.
“I believe he simply wanted a pair hits to get it out of his head,” Muncy mentioned. “You’ve got seen it the final two nights, he is been Mookie Betts.”
 Rowan Kavner is an MLB author for FOX Sports activities. He beforehand lined the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved again to the West Coast in 2014. Observe him on Twitter at@RowanKavner.
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