Mookie Betts is back. The Dodgers activated him from the injured list Monday after a five-week absence due to a strained right oblique, slotted him right back into his No. 2 spot between Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, and got a hit in his first game back. The offense didn’t come together that night and Los Angeles lost 9-3, but the bigger picture is what matters: the best lineup in baseball has its missing piece back.
The oblique strain that sent Betts to the IL on April 5 was the kind of injury that could have easily stretched into June or beyond. Betts went through three rehab games at Triple-A to make sure the body was ready before the team activated him. The cautious approach paid off.
The Dodgers struggled without him. A team built around the expectation of having three or four elite producers in the lineup every night doesn’t absorb the loss of one of those producers gracefully. LA went through a four-game losing streak in the period before his return.
Three games after his return, Betts hit a home run in a 4-0 shutout victory over the Giants. That’s what healthy Mookie looks like: in his normal lineup spot, taking good at-bats, making contact with authority when the fastball is there, and delivering in the moments that flip games.
Los Angeles with Betts in the lineup is a different team than the one that went through its mid-May losing skid. The full version of this roster is back, and it’s the best roster in baseball. The rest of the NL should be paying attention.
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.
