If the baseball fans of New England hadn’t already been experiencing enough anguish watching Mookie Betts spearhead a postseason run in Dodger blue, Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday night probably made them even sicker.
Betts became the first player in World Series history to score two runs, steal two bases and hit a home run in the same game in the Dodgers’ 8-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Betts stole second and third in the fifth, the latter the front end of a double steal with Corey Seager, and then broke for home on Max Muncy’s grounder to first with the infield in and beat Yandy Díaz’s throw home, a bit of daring that touched off a four-run inning and turned a 2-1 game into a 6-1 game. An inning later, he hit reliever Josh Fleming’s first pitch over the right field fence, a 349-foot shot that extended the lead to 7-1.
Oh, but there was also this. Betts became the first man to walk and score two bases in the same inning in a World Series game since a fellow named Babe Ruth did so for the Yankees against the New York Giants in 1921. (Fifth inning of Game 2 at the Polo Grounds, to be precise.)
First observation: How crazy a world is this when a man’s home run isn’t Ruthian but his stolen bases are?
Second observation: That encompasses two of the worst baseball transactions in Boston history in one sentence. If you know a Red Sox fan, he or she could probably use a kind word or two about now.
But it’s evident to anyone who watches the Dodgers play, and more so if you watch Betts night in and night out: This club, following that early February trade, is better equipped to win the World Series than it has been at any point in the last 32 years.
“The pressure Mookie puts on other teams is huge for us,” catcher Austin Barnes said. “We felt it before, you know, when we played (him) in the (2018) World Series. He’s bringing a different element to the game for us.”
Clayton Kershaw, who punched a hole in his own postseason narrative Tuesday night with a relentlessly efficient six innings (two hits, one run, eight strikeouts and a slider that was meh in the first inning and masterful in the last five), was asked if, when his team is playing up to its capability, anybody else could beat it.
“I mean, if we play at our best, no,” he said via Zoom. “I think we are the best team and I think our clubhouse believes that. There’s going to be certain times when we get beat, and that happens. But as a collective group, if everybody’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing and playing the way they’re supposed to. I don’t see how that can happen.”
There are the big things Betts provides, like the home run, or the stolen bases, or the crazy good defensive plays he keeps making in right field.
And there are the little things, things that go unseen by the public but not unnoticed by his team.
Case in point: It was late when the Dodgers finished off the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series on Sunday night in Arlington, Texas, nearly 11 p.m. when the game ended and well after that when the team got back to its hotel.
A large number of players congregated in one of the outdoor spaces on the hotel grounds and, Justin Turner said Monday, “were talking baseball, talking about the series that we just went through and, you know, different situations and different plays that came up. Although I think we were trying to celebrate it a little bit, everyone’s mind just went straight back to baseball.”
Said Betts: “It definitely showed that we’re here to win, man. And just in those conversations, you can tell. You can tell. I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
And that Monday, for an optional workout on the one day off between series, both buses were at full capacity.
That commitment starts with the leadership of veterans Betts and Turner. It might go all the way back to the address Betts gave in the clubhouse during the first week of spring training, when he emphasized the importance of that ring and described what kind of effort it would take to get one.
He related Tuesday night that he’d given himself one of those pep talks after he’d come in second to Mike Trout in the American League MVP race in 2016.
“I knew it was going to be tough for me to repeat that or get better,” he recalled. “And I think I told myself, ‘I just want to be consistent.’
“Watching the greats play, they’re all just really consistent. You know, they hit their home runs constantly, are driving in runs constantly, walk constantly, make good plays constantly. That’s not just one and then a long period of time before another one. You just have to be good at all aspects of the game all the time. Don’t take plays off. And I think 2016 was when I told myself, that’s what I want to do.”This is why the Dodgers traded for him. This is why they made sure he couldn’t get away by giving him a 12-year, $365 million extension the day before this shortened season began.
It might already be the best money they’ve ever committed to. Three more victories, and there will be no doubt.
https://goo.gl/hYDEHJ
No comments:
Post a Comment