Mookie Betts sounds depressed, but he isnt giving

Mookie Betts supplied a new perspective Tuesday afternoon on his season-long hunch, which is that it wasn’t a season-long hunch.

In his view, it truly prolonged back to last season.

“I really haven’t been right since I came back from my hand last year,” Betts said.

Betts fractured his left hand in mid-June last season when he was struck by a 98-mph fastball. He was sidelined for virtually two months.

“Think about it,” Betts said. “Go and look at it. I haven’t been right since.”

Betts was an MVP candidate when he went down, hitting .304 at the time. He batted .263 after his return, including .185 over the ultimate 17 video games of the common season.

The troubles from last yr have carried into this yr, in which he’s batting a career-worst .236.

Betts wished to make clear the purpose he was attempting to make.

“I wasn’t blaming it on my hand or anything,” he said. “I was just saying since coming back, I haven’t done anything. It’s not just this season.”

Betts even went out of his manner to downplay the severity of the harm or how it has affected him since.

“It wasn’t like I obliterated my hand,” he said. “It was a fracture.”

Betts pointed to how his grip energy was measured in spring coaching. The readings confirmed his grip was stronger than he was the earlier yr.

Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts makes a play during a sport against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium on Aug. 4.

(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)

“There’s no correlation to anything,” he said. “I wish I could blame it on something, but nah.”

My go to to Dodger Stadium on Tuesday was prompted by what Betts told reporters after a weekend sequence in Tampa. The remarks in query have been made when Betts was hitless in his last 4 video games; the streak prolonged to a career-high 5 after another hitless sport on Monday against the St. Louis Cardinals.

“I’ve done everything I can possibly do,” Betts told reporters. “It’s up to God at this point.”

In print, at least, he sounded defeated. His quotes, I told him, have been miserable.

“I don’t know if you’re watching what’s going on, but it is depressing,” Betts said with a smile.

So he still had a sense of humor.

Which isn’t to say he’s not baffled or pissed off by his lack of manufacturing.

“It’s unexplainable,” Betts said. “I don’t know. It sucks. You know how in Space Jam, they take your superpowers away? Kind of what it feels like. I’ve never been there, never done that, so to have that happen, I don’t know how to get out of it.”

Without any particular solutions, he’s doubled down on the overall philosophy that made him one of baseball’s biggest gamers.

He’s labored.

“That’s the only thing I can do,” he said. “The only thing I can control is my effort and my attitude.”

When Betts says he’s completed all the things he may do to recapture his outdated magic, what he’s actually saying is that he’s doing all the things he can.

“I hit for three or four hours a day,” he said. “At some point, your body breaks down, but I’d rather break down than not give the effort.”

Betts confirmed up at Dodger Stadium before 1:30 p.m. on Monday for the sequence opener against the Cardinals, which began at 7:10. He hit in the batting cages, labored on his protection on the sphere, and participated in batting apply. He returned to the batting cages at around 4:30 and stayed there until 6:15.

“Just trying to relearn, going to the basics, relearning myself,” he said. “I had to go back and think about what I used to do in the minor leagues, [those] types of things.”

Betts may not have yet discovered the changes required from him to escape of his hunch, but he’s also not out of concepts. He acknowledged he’s purposely sounded more clueless than he truly is in order to keep away from discussing adjustments he’s attempting to implement.

“There’s a bunch of stuff that I’m working on,” he said. “That’s stuff that, no offense to you guys, but you guys wouldn’t understand.”

The former proper fielder didn’t assume the workload at shortstop was the source of his issues, and he didn’t assume his bat velocity had declined in the last couple of years, as data from baseball’s monitoring system had indicated.

“I haven’t hit the ball solid,” Betts said. “Naturally, you slow down because you try to hit the ball solid.”

While the experiment of deploying Betts as a leadoff hitter ended after only two weeks, supervisor Dave Roberts said he was dedicated to batting him close to the top of the lineup.

“If that’s not confidence from a manager to a player,” Roberts said, “I don’t know what is.”

Betts rewarded Roberts’ religion on Tuesday in a 12-6 victory over the Cardinals on Tuesday, as he was three for 4 with a double, a stroll and three runs. The three-hit sport was his first in virtually two months.

Betts refused to read an excessive amount of into the efficiency.

“It’s good to get the results, but it’s one game,” he said. “Every time we talk about [a good game], I go 0 for 20 after. So we’ll see about tomorrow.”

He departed the stadium unsure of what the outcomes could be the next day, but he knew what the method could be. He would continue to work and continue to search for solutions.