Mookie Betts and the Dodgers were in danger of falling short in the postseason again, but the former Boston Red Sox star got the motivation he needed to step up when it mattered most.
Los Angeles closed out the National League Division Series when it shut out the San Diego Padres in Game 5. Dave Roberts’ side advanced to the NL Championship Series for the first time since 2021 and will take on the red-hot New York Mets.
Betts finally broke an 0-for-22 slump when he batted 2-for-4 with a home run and two runs in Game 3 of the NLDS on Tuesday. He then went 2-for-5 with a homer in Game 4 on Wednesday. And despite his 0-for-3 performance Friday, he’ll ride his momentum in his chase for a third World Series ring.
The 2018 American League MVP’s slump breakout came after David Ortiz gave the former Red Sox star a motivational speech, which added more to the duo’s special relationship.
“It was way more special than anybody can really imagine. Coming up and debuting and having him next to me, he doesn’t realize because he’s playing, but I’m looking at him and he’s an icon to me,” Betts said on the FOX postgame show. “The relationship we developed over time, usually it kind of withers away, especially once he’s retired and I’m still playing. But it’s actually, I would say, gotten closer as the business has grown. I talk to him every two weeks or so. He’s checking in. I’m checking in. And for him to call me, especially in a time like that — a down time, I was really down — and he called me and just gave me words of encouragement and told me everything’s going to be cool. Just go smile. Go smile and it worked.”
Ortiz told Betts he loved him before he showed him a T-shirt of himself that said “My dawg.” Fellow former Red Sox Kiké Hernández also went viral after Game 5, though for different reasons. They’ll have one day of rest before Game 1 of the NLCS begins Sunday.