It was a very difficult year for Los Angeles superstar Mookie Betts.
Away from the team, his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, it was revealed this weekend that his stepfather had passed away.
The entire community has been sending prayers and support to Betts and his family during this time.
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After the defeated the Minnesota twins on Wednesday, Betts legged an infield single to start the rally with two outs at the bottom of the nine innings, with Dave Roberts’ manager carefully explaining that his shortstop might miss out for a while.
“It may be that he may not be around, that he has to deal with personally,” Roberts said. “He’s all fine, but yeah, we’ll see.”
Betts missed the series opener against his former team, the Boston Red Sox, but headed to Fenway Park for the second game, earning only one opportunity to become a pinch hit as the game’s final batsman.
The lost the series finale, but Betts walked over RBI singles and his former teammate Walker Buhler to 4-4.
Betts dealt with a strange stomach bug towards the end of spring training, which sidelined him for the final Cactus League match, sending him home from a team trip before the ‘ first two regular season games took place.
After the first 10 games of the season, Betts fell into a career-worst slump.
The superstar is currently hit .237/.310/.368 with an OPS of .678. Defensively, however, Betts has posted elite numbers, including rankings at the 76th percentile, which is above average among qualified fielders, ranking third for MLB shortstop in terms of saved defensive runs.
Roberts recently spoke about his confidence that he still has with Betts and soon gets out of his recession, knowing that he has the work ethic and knowledge to regain his swing.
“There’s a lot of moving parts in his swing, there’s always been,” Roberts said. “So it’s not always easy to get them all in sync, but that’s why we have to keep working through it.
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Photo credit: Jeff Hanisch-Mimagn Image
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