When Mookie Betts hit his first home run with the Dodgers, no one met him at home plate. No one offered a high-five, leaving Betts to swat the empty air in pantomime.
His teammates weren’t freezing him out in a rite of passage. It was a sign of the newfound commitment to health and safety protocols adopted by MLB teams in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
“It’s super weird,” Betts said of socially-distanced baseball. “Without fans it’s really weird. Not being able to touch is really weird. But you know it’s the new normal. So we have to get used to it.”
Betts’ teammates had much to celebrate with him Friday night. He added an RBI single to his first home run and the defensive highlight of the game — a 305-foot throw from the right-field corner to nail a runner at third base. But the Dodgers’ bullpen couldn’t hold the lead Betts helped build, surrendering four runs in the eighth inning of a 5-3 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Corey Seager also homered for the Dodgers, his third consecutive game with a home run. Seager is off to a hot start, batting .344 (11 for 32) with two doubles and those three home runs in the first eight games of the season.
Betts had already grabbed the spotlight in the first inning when Ketel Marte led off for the Diamondbacks and dropped a broken-bat flare down the right field line. While Betts was racing over to collect the ball in foul territory near the corner, Marte was struck by a bad idea — trying to stretch the gift hit into a triple.
Betts, a four-time Gold Glove winner in the American League, gunned him down.
“I knew it was a sure double. I know he has speed so possible triple,” Betts said. “I tried to get there as fast as possible, and then I saw as he was about to round second, to go to third he wasn’t slowing down. So I knew I needed to get rid of it quick. Fortunately I put a good throw together.”
Betts’ first home run as a Dodger came in the fourth inning off Diamondbacks starter Zac Gallen. With the count 2-and-2, Gallen threw Betts a changeup low and off the plate inside. Betts golfed it high down the left field line like a well-struck 8-iron. The ball stayed just fair, landing in the Diamondbacks bullpen.
An inning later, the Dodgers’ Edwin Rios led off with a ringing double off the high wall in straightaway center field. Two batters later, Betts lined a single into right field to score Rios. After starting his Dodgers career 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position, Betts now has hits in each of his past three at-bats with RISP.
“I think so,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said when asked if Betts might have been pressing to make an impression with the Dodgers in his first week. “With a guy like Mookie, you really can’t tell if he’s pressing because his demeanor is just so consistent. But obviously you want to show with the new fans, new city, new teammates. But mechanically he’s fine. He has clarity of mind. It was good to see him throw out a few hits tonight and a homer.”
Betts was just 7 for his first 34 at-bats (.206) as a Dodger, but he said the issue wasn’t pressure, just a matter of honing his swing after the long time between spring training and summer camp.
“No, that’s not in my brain at all,” Betts said of pressing in the wake of the $365 million arrival as a Dodger. “I just wasn’t mechanically sound, and trying to search in the game is not the best way to go about playing the game. You have to just focus on the game and worry about mechanics later but I was not doing that.”
Marte’s misbegotten double was the only Diamondbacks hit in four innings against right-hander Tony Gonsolin, making his season debut in place of injured Alex Wood. Rookie left-hander Victor Gonzalez followed him, making his major-league debut.
The Diamondbacks got to Gonzalez for a run in the sixth on Kole Calhoun’s RBI double. That was just the 21st run in eight games for the Diamondbacks who came into the game batting .196 as a team with OPS (.556) and slugging percentage marks that ranked 29th in baseball.
Those numbers looked much healthier after an explosion against a Dodgers bullpen that had been outstanding in the early going.
Roberts entrusted a two-run lead, 3-1, in the eighth to Blake Treinen, who had allowed just one hit to the first 11 hitters he faced as a Dodger.
With one out, Justin Turner misplayed Ketel Marte’s ground ball for an error. Two walks (one intentional) wrapped around a ground out loaded the bases for Christian Walker with two outs. Walker drove the first pitch from Treinen over Betts’ head — in center field for the first time this season after a late-game defensive move — for a three-run double that upturned the lead. David Peralta added an RBI single off Joe Kelly before Kelly could put his foot down.
“I thought I was gonna have a chance (to catch Walker’s drive),” said Betts who took a flat route at first. “I think if I take a deeper route there, maybe I have a chance. But that’s the route I took. He definitely squared it up and it carried through the gap pretty good. He’s got some thump in his bat so I gotta respect that. But I mean, you know, I gave it a good try, just came up short.”
Betts wasn’t done. His two-out double in the ninth (following a walk to Matt Beaty) put the tying runs in scoring position. But Cody Bellinger — off to a miserable .139 (5 for 36) start — popped up against Diamondbacks reliever Archie Bradley to end the game.
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