The Los Angeles Dodgers find themselves one game away from being eliminated in the 2025 World Series, primarily due to a string of poor offensive showings.
Amid several players not meeting expectations, ongoing struggles led to Andy Pages being benched and manager Dave Roberts making additional changes with the Dodgers lineup for Game5.
One of those was moving Mookie Betts from the two-hole to batting third as Roberts looked to give Shohei Ohtani some more protection with Will Smith behind him. Betts has been among the worst hitters on the Dodgers this postseason, and it’s been even more amplified in the World Series.
“I don’t want to speak on anybody else, but for me personally, I’ve just been terrible,” Betts said. “I’ve been terrible. I wish it was from lack of effort. I really do. But it’s not. I don’t have any answers.”
During the postseason, Betts is hitting .234 with a .647 on-base plus slugging percentage over 64 at-bats. He’s yet to hit a home run and has six RBI to go along with three runs scored. Against the Blue Jays, Betts is just 3-for-23 (.130) with no extra-base hits, one run scored and no RBI through five games.
Dropping Betts to third in the Dodgers lineup didn’t do much to correct his issues. He went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, which was Betts’ least productive game of the World Series. He reached base in each of the previous Fall Classic games, but also had a 1-for-8 with a walk in the marathon 18-inning Game 3.
However, it also isn’t out of the norm for Betts. In 103 World Series at-bats throughout his career, he’s only batted .222/.301/.367 (.668 OPS) with seven extra-base hits. That has come across four separate World Series, including Betts’ first with the Boston Red Sox.
During the postseason as a whole in his career, he’s hit .255/.341/.401 (.741), a far drop-off from his .290/.369/.512 (.881) in the regular season.
Dodgers offense has to make adjustments
In the World Series, the Dodgers have scored just 18 runs in 54 innings, giving them an average of three per nine innings. In the last two games, the Dodgers have totaled just two runs while going 10-for-61 and 0-for-6, respectively, with runners in scoring position.
“It doesn’t feel great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the Game 5 loss. “You clearly see those guys finding ways to get hits, move the baseball forward, and we’re not doing a good job of it. I thought (Trey) Yesavage was good tonight mixing his fastball, slider, and the split. But, yeah, you still have to use the whole field and take what they give you.
“And if they’re not going to allow for slug, then you’ve got to be able to kind of redirect and club down to take competitive at-bats, and you see whether it’s (Addison) Barger or (Bo) Bichette, those guys are doing it. But again, we have that ability. We’ve got to make some adjustments.
“We have seen (Kevin) Gausman a ton, a lot of our guys have seen him, so we just got to come in fresh. We’ve been in elimination games, a core group of these guys, and we got to find a way to win a game. That’s it.”
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