Mookie Catches Fire, Dodgers Keep The Giants Smoldering

There was a time not all that long ago when Mookie Betts was becoming part of the larger conversation about what was wrong with the Dodgers offense. Kyle Tucker was taking heat. Teoscar Hernández was taking heat. Betts was taking his share of it, too. For a lineup built around the idea that its stars would eventually start looking like stars again, the waiting had begun to feel a little longer than anybody wanted.

Apparently, the switch was located somewhere.

Betts went 4-for-4 with three doubles, two runs and two RBI Saturday night, repeatedly putting himself in motion and eventually becoming the catalyst for a Dodgers offense that kept answering every San Francisco attempt to make a game of it before turning the whole thing into a 10-4 rout at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers collected 15 hits, every starter except Freddie Freeman reached safely via a hit, and they scored in six consecutive innings to open the game for the first time in a decade.

And if there is a larger story developing here, it is not simply that Betts had a big night. It is that Betts has suddenly joined Tucker and Hernández on the list of Dodgers who spent much of the season being asked, in one form or another, when they were going to start looking like themselves.

The timing is becoming rather convenient.

A week ago, Betts was hitting .249. After Saturday's performance, he is at .261, and while that still isn't the number anyone expects to see beside Mookie Betts' name, the direction matters considerably more with October approaching than it did a month ago.

Betts has also returned to the top of the order, a place where he spent years being the guy who set everything in motion. When asked afterward how it felt to be back there, and whether he felt like the point guard again, Betts smiled and acknowledged that it was fun, but immediately redirected the attention toward Shohei Ohtani.

"That man Shohei, he deserves what he gets," Betts said, before adding that everyone knows where Ohtani needs to hit in the lineup.

That's Mookie. Even after going 4-for-4, he manages to make the answer about somebody else.

But there was no hiding how much fun he is having with the way the lineup is performing.

"Yeah, it's awesome," Betts said. "We're having good at-bats all game, from 1 through 9, and that makes it tough to beat."

That has been the difference lately. The Dodgers aren't waiting for one or two guys to carry everything. Somebody is getting on, somebody else is driving him in, somebody is taking a walk, and eventually somebody puts a baseball somewhere the opposing defense would prefer it not go.

Saturday, that somebody was often Betts.

The Giants did their best to keep the evening interesting. They tied the game three different times, including Victor Bericoto's 425-foot, two-run homer in the third that made it 4-4. But the Dodgers simply kept coming. Tommy Edman broke the tie in the fifth with a two-out, two-run single, Miguel Rojas followed with another RBI single and, after San Francisco finally stopped the immediate bleeding, Betts opened the sixth with his third double and eventually scored on Will Smith's RBI single. Smith finished with three hits of his own, including a home run, while Josue De Paula added a two-run single later in the inning.

By then, the Giants were essentially trying to hold back a tide with a paper towel.

For Tarik Skubal, the evening was considerably less elegant.

The Dodgers' newly acquired ace picked up his 11th win, but he certainly didn't do it by overpowering San Francisco. Skubal allowed four runs and eight hits over five innings, walked two and struck out three. The fastball command that had been so good in his previous outing simply wasn't there Saturday night, and Skubal was candid enough afterward to say exactly that.

"Fastball command wasn't great," Skubal said. "I think all pitching is fastball command, and mine wasn't great today."

Fortunately for him, the Dodgers offense apparently decided that five innings and four runs was close enough to work with.

That's another sign of where this team is at the moment. A month ago, an uneven start from Skubal might have put considerably more pressure on everybody else. Saturday, the offense simply kept answering.

And then there was Edwin Díaz.

For the second consecutive night, Díaz entered in a low-leverage situation as the Dodgers continue to get their electric closer reacquainted with the business of pitching in major-league games. He threw another scoreless inning Saturday and struck out two more, giving him four strikeouts and one hit allowed over two innings across the two appearances, with no runs allowed.

"I just want to keep climbing the ladder and finish the season strong," Díaz said.

That is exactly what the Dodgers need from him right now. There is no reason to make this more dramatic than it needs to be. Give him innings. Let him face hitters. Let him get comfortable again.

The trumpet can wait for October.

For now, Díaz is simply turning the machinery back on.

And Betts appears to be doing the same thing.

The Dodgers have spent much of this season waiting for all of these pieces to arrive at the same time. Tucker has found another gear. Hernández has been swinging one of the hotter bats on the club. Betts is suddenly spraying doubles all over the ballpark and looking increasingly comfortable at the top of the order. The defending champions don't need every player to peak simultaneously, but having several of them begin trending upward with the postseason just around the corner certainly qualifies as useful timing.

Betts was asked how much fun he is having these days.

His answer sounded less like a player celebrating a personal 4-for-4 night and more like someone enjoying watching the entire machine finally start humming again.

"We look good right now," he said. "We just gotta keep on."

That's probably the only instruction that matters.

The Dodgers have already taken the division. They've already secured another October. Now they're trying to arrive there playing the kind of baseball that made them champions in the first place.

Mookie Betts is starting to look like a pretty important piece of that equation again.

And judging by the way he was running around Dodger Stadium Saturday night, somebody apparently remembered to turn the heat back on.