The Dodgers’ recent slide has put plenty of pressure on the lineup, and Mookie Betts knows he needs to be part of the answer.
After Los Angeles dropped its fifth straight game, Betts spoke on SportsNet LA and didn’t hide his frustration with the way his offense has lagged this season. He said the Dodgers are in “a long season, just a rut,” but made it clear he believes the burden starts with him.
“It’s a long season, just a rut. I just know I need to be better.
I can’t speak for everyone else, but I’m going to have to help the team at some point. It’s been too long,” he said.
“Frustrating, but as far as the boys, everybody is in a pretty good headspace. It’s just a time that we go through.”
Betts’ frustration makes sense when you look at the gap between the results and the process. His 2026 slash line is down from 2025, yet his chase rate, whiff rate and strikeout rate have all been elite.
The quality of contact has moved in the right direction too, with his expected batting average, expected slugging percentage and average exit velocity all improving significantly. His barrel rate and hard-hit percentage have also ticked up, even if they still aren’t where he wants them to be.
That disconnect has made this stretch especially tough to manage.
“I mean, it’s very hard. I’ve never done this, so I don’t really know how to get through it.
So every day I show up and try to restore that hope meter in order to keep myself going. This has been really hard,” he said.
Betts has already been through this kind of offensive search before. Near the end of last season, he said he was out of ideas for getting his bat back on track and decided to stop obsessing over the numbers.
Instead, he focused on doing whatever he could to help the team win. He’s taken the same approach again this year.
“I did that earlier in the season. I just want to help us win. That’s really it,” he said.
There is at least some reason for the Dodgers to believe better days are ahead. Betts put together a strong month of June and showed he can still produce like his old self. The underlying numbers suggest that stretch wasn’t just a fluke, and Los Angeles is hoping he can get rolling again if he keeps taking the right swings.
Betts has also made it clear he doesn’t view the last two seasons as his new normal. He’s said before that he believes he can still fight through the offensive decline, and this year he has leaned on a steady routine rather than constantly changing things in search of a fix. He said he was inspired by Freddie Freeman to keep that approach consistent, no matter what the results look like from one game to the next.
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