Mookie Betts Is Back for the Dodgers After Five Weeks on the IL, and Not a Moment Too Soon
Mookie Betts is back. The Los Angeles Dodgers activated their shortstop off the injured list Monday, ending a five-week absence that started with an oblique strain on April 4.
Betts went 1-for-5 in his return as the Dodgers lost 9-3 to the San Francisco Giants, their third straight defeat. The win didn’t come, but the presence matters more than the stat line right now. Los Angeles needed Betts back in the lineup, and they needed it weeks ago.
His return came after a rehab assignment that included two games with Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he went 2-for-5 with a walk and played 11 innings in the field. The Dodgers are easing him back carefully: play Monday and Tuesday, a planned day off Wednesday, then two of the next three games before ramping up to a full workload.
Betts is one of the few irreplaceable players in baseball. His combination of elite defense at shortstop, consistent on-base presence, and postseason production gives the Dodgers a quality they cannot replicate from anyone else on the roster. When he’s out, the lineup is legitimately different.
Los Angeles has a deep enough team to tread water through short absences, but five weeks is not short. The Dodgers were dealing with Betts’ absence at the same time Blake Snell landed back on the IL and Max Fried was nursing an elbow concern. The injury pile-up has been real, and the standings have felt it.
Getting Betts back healthy and into his rhythm before June is critical for this Dodgers team to avoid a deeper hole than they’re already in. Monday’s loss was not the return anyone wanted. But he’s back. That’s what matters right now.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
