Mookie Betts had another rough game at the plate on Monday, going 0-for-3 with four routine fly balls in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ comeback win over the Colorado Rockies.
The 33-year-old is now hitting just .165/.230/.342 across 79 at-bats this season, and .157/.200/.294 in his 12 games since returning from the injured list.
Betts did hit a sacrifice fly in his final at-bat of the game to put a little production in the box score, but he has just one hit in his last 17 at-bats. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts believes there are multiple issues affecting Betts’ offense.
“I think he’s obviously not confident in his swing, his mechanics,” Roberts said. “I think a little bit, he might be taking that into the batter’s box. Right now, I think his mechanics are one thing, but I think it’s a little bit overthinking, trying too hard, anxious.
“But it was good to see in that last at-bat, you could see him just fighting, and he was going to will himself to drive that run in, and that was good to see.”
Betts returned from the 10-day IL on May 11 after missing five weeks due to a right oblique strain. The shortstop opted to play in only two rehab games before returning to the Dodgers lineup.
Position players are eligible to be on rehab assignments for 20 days, but Betts chose to return far sooner, which could be affecting his production.
Roberts believes Betts is in a similar spot as many of the other Dodgers hitters who were slumping in early May, such as Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández and Kyle Tucker.
“Yeah, I think that’s exactly where he’s at right now,” Roberts said.
All those players turned things around, and the Dodgers will count on Betts doing the same. However, this may be a more concerning trend than a slump in a small sample, as it was for the other players.
Since the start of 2025, Betts is hitting .247/.315/.398, good for a 99 wRC+, meaning he has been 1% worse than a league-average hitter in a 750-plate appearance sample.
His overall line isn’t all that much better when going back even further. From May 1, 2024, through May 25, 2026, Betts has only been 3% better than league-average, batting .251/.319/.412 in 1,116 plate appearances.
Last year, Betts found brief success after making a mental shift to stop caring about results, but that production lasted only a few weeks.
During the offseason, Betts focused on what he described as “re-wiring his body” to fix his swing. He was confident in the progress he made, but only hit .179/.281/.429 in his eight games before his injury.
Betts also said he felt like his swing was back to to where it needs to be after picking up two hits on May 16.
“Yeah, it feels like it,” Betts answered. “I just have to continue to make sure I swing at good pitches and then obviously maintenance on the swing and making sure it stays good.”
Since that point, Betts has hit .138/.188/.172 with a 1 wRC+ — 99% worse than league average — in 32 plate appearances.
Metrics encouraging for Mookie Betts?
There is some reason for optimism with Betts, stemming from the advanced metrics. His expected batting average, expected slugging, chase rate, whiff percentage, squared-up rate, launch angle, sweet-spot percentage, and strikeout rate all point to better things.
On the flip side, his hard hit rate is down, and so is his bat speed. He is also walking far less than he’s done previously.
It’s still far too early to draw any significant conclusions from those expected numbers, given his small sample size, but any optimism is needed for Betts at the moment.
Even if things do turn around as the data suggests, his expected stats are still far below his 2023 and earlier numbers, so expectations should be tempered.
Betts’ overall quality of contact is still below that of the average MLB player this season, but getting him back to league average would make for a productive player with his defense at shortstop.
It’s also important to remember that these expected stats only provide insight into how a player has performed to date, not how they will perform going forward. They tend to be a bit more predictive than traditional stats, but a larger picture is still required.
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