LOS ANGELES — The ‘OKC Shuttle’ might need to make a few refueling stops this week with all the roster maneuvering the Dodgers have done.
After a brief pause, though, Mookie Betts’ MVP campaign is flying high again.
Betts went 5 for 5, drove in two runs and scored two as the Dodgers beat the Washington Nationals, 6-2, on Tuesday night, just their second win in the past six games.
“Having the stars be stars – you know, that’s why they’re on our roster, and that’s why they’re superstars,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So they have to step up and carry us when we need it.”
Betts has carried more than his share of the load.
He got off to a scorching start to the season and was batting .500 after eight games. He became mortal for the next eight games, going 6 for 31 (.194), but he has turned up the temperatures once again. With his career high-tying five hits against the Nationals, Betts is 10 for 19 over the past four games.
“Just continue to work and work and work,” Betts said. “Sometimes you’re gonna get them, sometimes you’re not. That’s just part of the game.”
Part of Betts’ responsibility at the top of the lineup is to spark the Dodgers’ offense. But he said the four losses in five games before Tuesday didn’t make him feel any added urgency to get things going against the Nationals.
“No, not at all. You can’t really put extra pressure on yourself,” Betts said. “It’s not like I can just say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get a hit.’ The game doesn’t really work that way.”
That’s hard to prove by Betts’ performance over the past month.
He led off the bottom of the first inning Tuesday with a single. Shohei Ohtani matched that and Freddie Freeman walked to load the bases with no outs. Betts scored on a double play, all the Dodgers got from the promising start.
But it was the seventh time in 20 games that Betts has scored a run in the first inning. The Dodgers (12-8) have won six of those games.
They went to work against Nationals starter Patrick Corbin again in the second inning. Fresh off that shuttle from Triple-A Oklahoma City, Andy Pages lined the first pitch he saw as a major leaguer into right field for a single. Miguel Rojas walked and Austin Barnes drove in Pages with a single. Betts made it a 3-0 lead with an RBI double.
Kiké Hernandez added a solo home run in the fifth. Betts scored again in the seventh after leading off with another double and drove in another run with an RBI single in the eighth, tying his career-high with his fifth hit of the game.
“I think the thing that stands out most is his plate discipline,” Roberts said of the factors that have produced Betts’ .388 batting average and 1.190 OPS through 20 games. “He just is not chasing. He really is controlling the strike zone.
“He’s using the big part of the field. And so I think for me – yeah, he’s obviously locked in, but he’s just controlling the zone really well.”
All of that was enough to support a crowd-sourced bullpen game.
Pitching in an ‘opener’ role, Kyle Hurt made his first big-league start and turned in two scoreless innings before handing it off to Ryan Yarbrough for the ‘bulk’ work.
Hurt’s first inning was a loud one. The first three Nationals batters had hits. Four of the first five hit balls with exit velocities of 96.8 mph, 96.4 mph, 95.8 mph and 103.6 mph. Throw in a stolen base too.
But Hurt escaped unharmed, thanks in part to a relay from Teoscar Hernandez in right field to second baseman Hernandez and home to cut off C.J. Abrams trying to score from first on a double by Jesse Winker.
Winker got his RBIs two innings later on a two-run home run off Yarbrough. But the left-hander delivered the bulk goods, retiring 14 consecutive batters after Winker’s homer.
“Nothing really changed. Just kind of settled in a little bit,” Yarbrough said.
“I was just really trying to get ahead of guys, keep them off balance and try to get quick outs. That was kind of the biggest difference. I didn’t really try to change or do too much different. It was more about just getting ahead.”
