Playoff baseball is stressful enough without feeling like you’re letting your team and an entire fan base down with every empty at-bat, which is why Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulled right fielder Mookie Betts aside for a little chat during Monday’s off-day workout in Petco Park.
Betts struck out, grounded out and walked three times — two of them intentional — in Saturday night’s National League Division Series-opening 7-5 win over the San Diego Padres in Dodger Stadium, and he was hitless with a strikeout in four at-bats in Sunday night’s 10-2 Game 2 loss.
The veteran right fielder who starred on both sides of the ball during the team’s run to the 2020 World Series title. is now three for 44 (.068) in his last 12 playoff games dating to Game 4 of the 2021 NL Championship Series, including an 0-for-11 collar in last season’s three-game NLDS sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Roberts thought Betts, who turned 32 on Monday, had good at-bats in Game 1, but he could sense Betts gripping the bat a little tighter in Game 2.
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“I don’t know if it’s angst or the pressure of past performances starting to kind of bleed in, but that’s something I don’t want to happen,” Roberts said. “I believe he’s going to come to life. I know he has the talent. Obviously, he’s not afraid of the situation.
“So for me, it’s more of just go out there and compete your tail off. It’s up to all of us to make sure that he’s in a good head space to go out there and compete and not get too worried about each particular at-bat.”
Roberts wanted to remind Betts on the eve of Tuesday night’s Game 3 in Petco Park to keep his eyes on the road ahead and stop staring in the rearview mirror.
“The fact is you can’t change the last X amount of postseason games,” Roberts said. “I understand the burden a player might have, but all anyone is concerned about is right now and how to best prepare yourself mentally for [Tuesday] night and the first at-bat. So that’s going to be basically my message.
“When you look at [great] postseason performers, it’s not that they over-performed their career stat line from the regular season. What they’ve done [in…