LOS ANGELES — Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts checked his cell phone late Monday night before boarding a flight back to Los Angeles, and it was already filled with congratulatory text messages.
He kept his phone on during the flight, and even more poured in.
By the time he woke up, his phone was buzzing incessantly with messages from friends, family, peers, players, executives, reporters and casual acquaintances.
It was a wheel play heard ‘round the world, called and perfectly executed by Betts, saving the game for the Dodgers in their 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, and who knows, maybe their season.
Betts has played 1,531 regular-season games and 78 postseason games in his 12-year career, and never, ever, has he received so many messages, with the baseball world still buzzing about it Tuesday.
“I think it’s such a basic play,” Betts said. “There’s only, like, two or three ways, and that’s one of them. It would be like the Lakers winning the NBA championship running the 2-3 zone. That’s how I view it.
“It’s just we ran it in a big spot, and we were able to do it right. I think we executed it really perfectly.”
It was a bunt that had the Philadelphia talk shows calling for manager Rob Thomson’s head. Bryson Stott was instructed to drop one down with no outs, Nick Castellanos on second base and the Phillies down by a run in the ninth inning. Stott bunted towards third baseman Max Muncy. Muncy wheeled and fired a perfect throw to third base, where Betts broke from his shortstop position to beat Castellanos to the bag and tag him out.
That play certainly may have been the end of the National League Division Series, with the Dodgers leading the series 2-0 against the Phillies with Game 3 on Wednesday night.
Still, Betts warns, it’s premature to start packing their bags for a trip to the Midwest to play the Milwaukee Brewers or Chicago Cubs in the NLCS. The Phillies didn’t win the NL East by accident. Their biggest stars – Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner – could break out any time after going 2-for-21 with 11 strikeouts this series.
“We know that they’re here,” Betts said. “They got on the plane with full intentions of going back for a Game 5. We know, we understand that. We know what’s in their locker room. We know what they’re capable of.
“So, we’ve got to come out ready to go. We’ve got to be able to withstand the punches that they’re going to throw and be able to throw some back.
“But by no means is it going to be easy. We just have to make sure we just play good, clean baseball.”
Still, as long as the Dodgers have Betts, who celebrated his 33rd birthday Tuesday, good luck trying to beat him. Betts has already won three World Series championships, and plans to fill up at least one of his hands with rings. He’s an eight-time All-Star, seven-time Silver Slugger, a six-time Gold Glove winner, a batting champion, and a Most Valuable Player winner.
The guy has been in the postseason nine times in the last 10 years, playing in three World Series, four League Championship Series and nine Division Series.
It’s no accident why Betts is always playing in October.
“That dude is incredible,” Phillies pitcher Walker Buehler, who played five years with Betts in Los Angeles, told USA TODAY Sports. “He’s great at whatever he does. He can beat you in bowling. He can beat you in golf. He can beat you at anything you can imagine.
“Really, he’s great for the game.”
So, the fact that Betts has gone from being a Gold Glove right fielder, to an All-Star second baseman, to one of the finest defensive shortstops in the game in his first full season, maybe it’s not so surprising.
“I don’t think there’s anything on this earth he can’t do,” Buehler said. “I will say it shocked me at first when I saw him move from position to position, but now I’m used to him doing it now. He’s just awesome.’’
Still, to be able to go from right field to second base to shortstop back to right field to shortstop, and doing it almost effortlessly, is mind-boggling. If Betts wanted to put on some catching gear and go behind the plate, or pull an Ohtani and take the mound, there’s no one in the Dodgers clubhouse that doubts he could pull it off.
“I spent a long time in the American League East,” says Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips of his four years with Baltimore and Tampa Bay, “and got to watch his greatness evolve from the early stages of his career. And his transition out here to LA has been seamless. And being his teammate out here has been incredible.
“I mean, it’s pretty impressive to watch this transition unfold. To see him become a good shortstop and take it in stride, is just so impressive. He wants to be great at everything.”
Betts remembers the skepticism when he moved to shortstop in spring training. Critics believed the Dodgers were taking a reckless gamble. Why mess with a good thing? Betts was already a Gold Glove right fielder, so why weaken two positions?
Betts took it as the ultimate challenge, trained in the winter with former two-time Gold Glove shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, worked tirelessly in spring training, sought advice from other shortstops, and here he is now, among the league leaders in defensive runs saved and outs above average by shortstops.
And, in the biggest moment of the season, when the Dodgers found themselves in a huge jam, it was Betts who instructed his fellow infielders that they would run the “wheel play,” even though they had never worked on it once all year.
A savvy shortstop has been born.
“I’m not going to say I’ve grown into it,” Betts said, “I think I’ve grown an understanding of it. I think playing all year there and really having Miggy [veteran infielder Miguel Rojas] has been like one of the biggest blessings in disguise I’ve ever had. He is so knowledgeable of baseball in general but especially the position of shortstop.
“It’s different when you have a coach, but when you have a teammate that’s actually out there, I can ask him questions during the game, in between pitches, somebody who always has an answer, always gives you his best every day.
“I couldn’t ask for anything better than having Miggy. He’s really responsible for a lot of my mental successes this year, for sure.”
Betts’ baseball acumen, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts says, reminds him of his days being around Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar. He will sit around with Betts and just talk shop, discussing game strategy, lineups, defensive alignments, pitching decisions, and anything and everything about the game of baseball and life.
Now, to see Betts’ defensive skills shine on the national stage, under the brightest of lights, and come up with that brilliant piece of shrewd strategy at the most critical of times, Roberts can’t sing his praises loudly enough.
“The easy context is it’s never been done,” Roberts said. “So, to go out there and play Gold Glove right field for years, and to be in the Gold Glove conversation this year, to playing the biggest of games on biggest of stages, it’s just never been done. It takes a special brain and talent to do it.”
Who knows, he can be Mookie Betts, the World Series champion, MVP, All-Star, Gold Glove winner now, but one day when his career ends, sitting in the dugout as a manager.
“Man, I never thought I’d have this kind of conversation,” Betts said, laughing. “Yeah, it’s coming. We’ll see what the wife, the kids, we’ll see when that time comes. But I’ve got a while. We’ll turn that part of the brain off.”
But for now, well, he’s got another World Series championship to win.
