LOS ANGELES — Whatever elements have combined to produce Mookie Betts’ hot start, he is not interested in analyzing them.
“Whatever – it is what it is,” he said this weekend when asked for an explanation, resorting to the cliche that seems to pepper his post-game interviews as frequently as he reaches base during games.
It was what it has been again Monday night. Betts scored three more runs and Teoscar Hernandez struck the big blow, a three-run home run in the sixth inning, as the Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants, 8-3.
Hernandez’s homer off reliever Tyler Rogers was his fourth of the season – tied with Mookie Betts for the MLB lead. All four of Hernandez’s homers have come in the past four games as he turned around a 2-for-12 start.
Betts continued his hot start, going 2 for 3 with a double and a triple and scoring three times. Betts has reached base 21 times in his first 33 plate appearances and scored 12 of those times. The two-game head start in Korea has helped, but Betts leads the majors in hits (13), runs scored, RBIs (10, tied with Lourdes Gurriel) and walks (eight).
In the first inning against the Giants he tripled off the wall in left-center field and scored on a ground out by Shohei Ohtani. In the third, he drew a one-out walk to ignite a two-run Dodgers’ burst. Freddie Freeman drove him in with a single and Will Smith added a run-scoring sacrifice fly.
That gave left-hander James Paxton a 3-0 cushion in his first start as a Dodger.
Paxton struggled with his command and walked five, but he turned in five scoreless innings for a Dodgers starting rotation that has been outstanding since returning stateside.
In the first five games of this homestand – once through the rotation – Dodgers starters have allowed just four runs on 17 hits while striking out 32 in 27 innings against the St. Louis Cardinals and Giants.
Reliever Ryan Brasier gave up a solo home run to Michael Conforto in the sixth inning, making it a 3-1 game.
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But Freeman led off the bottom of the inning with the second of his three hits and Smith walked. After Max Muncy bounced into a force out, Giants manager Bob Melvin brought in Rogers – the side-arming, and right-handed, half of the Rogers twins in the Giants’ bullpen – to face Hernandez.
Hernandez was unimpressed. He crushed Rogers’ second pitch, a 73-mph slider, sending it on a 431-foot journey into the left field pavilion and standing at home plate to admire the beginning of its flight path.
An inning later, the Dodgers put the game away – again sparked by Betts.
He doubled with one out and scored on a Freeman double. Smith drove Freeman home with a single.
The Dodgers are averaging nearly seven runs per game while winning five of their first seven games.
More to come on this story.
