Mookie Betts offered a new perspective Tuesday afternoon on his season-long slump, which is that it wasn’t a season-long slump.

In his view, it actually extended back to last season.

“I really haven’t been right since I came back from my hand last year,” Betts said.

Betts fractured his left hand in mid-June last season when he was struck by a 98-mph fastball. He was sidelined for almost two months.

“Think about it,” Betts said. “Go and look at it. I haven’t been right since.”

Betts was a MVP candidate when he went down, hitting .304 at the time. He batted .263 after his return, including .185 over the final 17 games of the regular season.

The troubles from last year have carried into this year, in which he’s batting a career-worst .236.

Betts wanted to clarify the point he was trying to make.

Read more:Max Muncy is back with four RBIs in Dodgers' rout of Cardinals

“I wasn’t blaming it on my hand or anything,” he said. “I was just saying since coming back, I haven’t done anything. It’s not just this season.”

Betts even went out of his way to downplay the severity of the injury or how it has affected him since.

"It wasn’t like I obliterated my hand,” he said. “It was a fracture.”

Betts pointed to how his grip strength was measured in spring training. The readings showed his grip was stronger than he was the previous year.

“There’s no correlation to anything,” he said. “I wish I could blame it on something, but nah.”

My visit to Dodger Stadium on Tuesday was prompted by what Betts told reporters after a weekend series in Tampa. The remarks in question were made when Betts was hitless in his last four games; the streak extended to a career-high five after another hitless game on Monday against the St. Louis Cardinals.

“I’ve done everything I can possibly do,” Betts told reporters. “It’s up to God at this point.”

In print, at least, he sounded defeated. His quotes, I told him, were depressing.

“I don’t know if you’re watching what’s going on, but it is depressing,” Betts said with a smile.

So he still had a sense of humor.

Which isn’t to say he’s not baffled or frustrated by his lack of production.

Read more:From a day off to the leadoff spot, Dodgers try unraveling mystery of Mookie Betts' slump

“It’s unexplainable,” Betts said. “I don’t know. It sucks. You know how in Space Jam, they take your superpowers away? Kind of what it feels like. I’ve never been there, never done that, so to have that happen, I don’t know how to get out of it.”

Without any specific answers, he’s doubled down on the general philosophy that made him one of baseball’s greatest players.

He’s worked.

“That’s the only thing I can do,” he said. “The only thing I can control is my effort and my attitude.”

When Betts says he’s done everything he could do to recapture his old magic, what he’s really saying is that he’s doing everything he can.

“I hit for three or four hours a day,” he said. “At some point, your body breaks down, but I’d rather break down than not give the effort.”

Read more:'A major league shortstop, on a championship club.' Why Dodgers don't plan to move Mookie Betts

Betts showed up at Dodger Stadium before 1:30 p.m. on Monday for the series opener against the Cardinals, which started at 7:10. He hit in the batting cages, worked on his defense on the field, and participated in batting practice. He returned to the batting cages at around 4:30 and stayed there until 6:15.

“Just trying to relearn, going to the basics, relearning myself,” he said. “I had to go back and think about what I used to do in the minor leagues, [those] types of things.”

Betts might not have yet figured out the adjustments required from him to break out of his slump, but he’s also not out of ideas. He acknowledged he’s purposely sounded more clueless than he actually is in order to avoid discussing changes he’s trying to implement.

“There’s a bunch of stuff that I’m working on,” he said. “That’s stuff that, no offense to you guys, but you guys wouldn’t understand.”

The former right fielder didn’t think the workload at shortstop was the source of his problems, and he didn’t think his batspeed had declined in the last couple of years, as data from baseball’s tracking system had indicated.

“I haven’t hit the ball solid,” Betts said. “Naturally, you slow down because you try to hit the ball solid.”

Read more:Dave Roberts gives Mookie Betts a day off as season-long slump continues

While the experiment of deploying Betts as a leadoff hitter ended after only two weeks, manager Dave Roberts said he was committed to batting him near the top of the lineup.

“If that’s not confidence from a manager to a player,” Roberts said, “I don’t know what is.”

Betts rewarded Roberts’ faith on Tuesday in a 12-6 victory over the Cardinals on Tuesday, as he was three for four with a double, a walk and three runs. The three-hit game was his first in almost two months.

Betts refused to read too much into the performance.

“It’s good to get the results, but it’s one game,” he said. “Every time we talk about [a good game], I go 0 for 20 after. So we’ll see about tomorrow.”

He departed the stadium uncertain of what the results would be the next day, but he knew what the process would be. He would continue to work and continue to search for answers.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Why Brandon Crawford was Casey Schmitt's favorite player growing up in SoCal originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

His roots are in San Diego, but Casey Schmitt still took his baseball cues from a Bay Area legend.

The Giants’ second baseman revealed his longtime admiration for franchise icon Brandon Crawford in the latest edition of NBC Sports Bay Area’s “BP With Britt,” explaining how San Francisco’s all-time leader in games played at shortstop influenced a SoCal kid growing up in the shadow of Petco Park.

“I think just watching baseball and kind of just being a fan of the game was a big thing for me,” Schmitt recently told Laura Britt. “Just watching [Crawford] and being able to meet him, play alongside him … it was really cool and just developed [a] relationship with him as well.”

Schmitt and Crawford spent just one season as teammates in 2023, before Crawford left for the St. Louis Cardinals and retired a year later. But that one campaign was long enough for Crawford’s professionalism and playing style to rub off on Schmitt.

“Just the way he goes about his business every single day … the way he does everything, he’s an awesome person,” Schmitt said. “Just to be around and learn from him was really cool.”

There was plenty to learn. Crawford enjoyed an illustrious career with the Giants, earning three National League All-Star nods and winning four Gold Glove awards at shortstop, in addition to two World Series rings.

The 26-year-old Schmitt has settled in as a starter for the first time in 2025, with six home runs and 22 RBI in 54 games played.

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Yankees fans may have been confused when they saw Devin Williams warming up to come in to pitch the eighth inning of a 0-0 game on Tuesday night.

It was less than 24 hours prior that manager Aaron Boone called on Williams to close out Monday's series opener against the Rangers. The closer allowed a game-tying homer to Joc Pederson in the Yankees' eventual loss in extra innings. So, in a high-leverage situation and riding a four-game losing streak, why did Boone call on Williams again?

"We got to piece it together there once Will [Warren] goes five, we’re set up there," Boone explained after the game. "Liked him in that middle with a handful of those righties. Obviously, just couldn’t finish it off."

Warren pitched in and out of trouble through five scoreless innings for the Yankees. Boone then used Camilo Doval and Luke Weaver to keep the Rangers off the board in the sixth and seventh innings. Unfortunately, Williams couldn't keep Texas off the board. After getting Marcus Semien to ground out to start the eighth, Adolis Garcia lined a double off the top of Jasson Dominguez's glove for a double. Williams then walked Pederson and Wyatt Langford to load the bases.

Boone had Mark Leiter Jr. -- activated Tuesday from the IL -- and David Bednar warming up, but the longtime skipper stuck with Williams. Unfortunately, Rowdy Tellez battled through a 10-pitch at-bat to line a two-run single, the difference in the game. 

"I was going to maybe go with Bednar in a four-out situation," Boone said, giving his rationale for keeping Williams on the mound. "Just shorten the game a little bit. Not a lot left down there. Leiter being in a situation where he hasn’t pitched in a while. If I could get it to a four-out scenario, I was going to do it. Felt Devin could get some swing-and-miss there, but obviously didn’t." 

"I don’t know what to say at this point," Williams said of his performance after the game. "Just continue to work, keep trying to execute and help the team any way I can."

Williams has now allowed 26 runs this season, which equals the runs allowed the three seasons prior combined. 

It's been an up-and-down season for the first-year Yankee. Williams allowed 15 earned runs from March to May, losing the closer's role to Weaver. But once Weaver went down to injury, Williams regained his spot and to his credit, he excelled. In 10 appearances in June, Williams allowed just one run. He would stay solid until the end of July. Across his last four appearances, Williams has allowed six runs over 3.2 innings, blowing two saves in the process.

"Not sure [why Williams has struggled this year]. Obviously, in the middle here, he’s been really good," Boone said. "Lately, he’s had some struggles. We got to hopefully help him turn the corner and get part of a group that can still be very good down there.

"I don’t know stuff-wise is off. A little bit command, walks have hurt him here and there. Times when he gets behind in the count have hurt him a little bit. We have to get him turned around."

Tuesday's loss was more than just Williams allowing the go-ahead runs. The Yankees offense mustered just two hits against the Rangers and have now dropped five games in a row. What's worse, the Rangers have gained two games on New York in the Wild Card standings. After the loss, and the Mariners' victory, the Yankees fell to third in the Wild Card race and remain just 0.5 games ahead of the Rangers for that final spot.

A loss to the Rangers on Wednesday will see the Yankees out of the playoffs.

With that in mind, Boone was asked where he felt things are with his team.

"Not good," he said. "We got to put it on record. If we don’t win, it doesn’t matter. We play like this and don’t string wins together, it doesn’t matter. I remain confident in this group, but we continue to say that and we have to make it happen."

It might be a cliché this time of year, how injured players who return after the trade deadline can serve as de facto deadline acquisitions themselves.

But in the case of Max Muncy and the Dodgers, the team needed it to be true. Badly.

Immediately after Muncy went down with a knee injury in early July, the club’s lineup entered a deep midseason slump. Its actual deadline acquisitions, which included only one hitter in outfielder Alex Call, had underwhelmed the fan base.

Thus, when Muncy returned to action Monday night, the Dodgers were desperately hoping the veteran slugger could provide a spark.

Twenty-four hours later, he did it with two thunderous swings.

In the Dodgers’ 12-6 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, Muncy officially christened his comeback with a four-for-five, four-RBI performance that included a pair of no-doubt home runs off Miles Mikolas — picking up almost exactly where he left off before suffering a July 2 knee injury that he feared would end his season.

“As I was laying there on the ground that night, I thought for sure this is it,” Muncy recalled this week, after not only recovering from what proved to be just a bone bruise, but doing it two weeks faster than the initial six-week timeline the team had expected.

Read more:‘As lucky as we could be.’ Dodgers’ Max Muncy already recovering better than expected

“It’s hard to stay positive in a moment like that,” Muncy added, while reliving Michael A. Taylor’s slide into his left knee a month earlier. “But extremely thankful and blessed to be back on a baseball field this year.”

Muncy did have some rust to knock off, going hitless in three at-bats with a walk and strikeout in his first game back Monday night against crafty Cardinals right-hander Sonny Gray.

On Tuesday, however, Mikolas gave him the chance to do some long-awaited damage.

In the first inning, after Shohei Ohtani doubled and scored on a Freddie Freeman sacrifice fly, Muncy clobbered a center-cut, first-pitch sinker 416 feet into the right-field pavilion, giving the Dodgers a quick 2-0 lead.

In the third, after the Cardinals leveled the score on Nolan Gorman’s two-run homer off Emmet Sheehan an inning earlier, Muncy went deep again, whacking an elevated fastball 404 feet for a two-run blast.

The Dodgers (66-48) wouldn’t relinquish the lead again, going on to their first double-digit scoring effort since June 22 thanks to a five-run rally in the seventh, when Muncy also added an RBI single, and two more runs in the eighth, when Muncy tacked on his fourth hit.

Read more:Things are finally turning around for Dodgers' Roki Sasaki

There were other positive signs for the Dodgers’ recently scuffling lineup on Tuesday.

Mookie Betts, who was mired in a career-long five-game, 22 at-bat hitless streak, recorded three knocks: A double right before Muncy’s second homer in the third, a line-drive single in the fifth, and a seeing-eye grounder in the eighth.

Andy Pages, who was batting just .211 since the All-Star break, made hard contact on doubles in the sixth and the seventh.

And Teoscar Hernández, who was hitting just .213 since returning from a groin strain in May, came roaring to life with a two-homer game, going back-to-back with Muncy on a solo home run in the third before smashing a game-sealing three-run drive after Muncy's RBI single in the seventh.

Leading up to the deadline, manager Dave Roberts cited that subset of slumping hitters as potential quasi-deadline additions in their own right. Part of the reason for the team’s relative inaction at the deadline was its trust that the healthy, but scuffling, members of its lineup would get back on track down the stretch.

Still, Muncy’s eventual return had long been seen as the Dodgers’ biggest potential boon, especially after they went from leading the majors in scoring before he got hurt to ranking last in runs over the 25 games he missed.

“We’ve certainly missed him,” Roberts said ahead of Muncy’s return Monday. “The night he came off the field, you’re starting to think of it potentially being season-ending. So to get him back in a month, we’re all excited. He’s put in a lot of work to get back with this timeline. And yeah, we’ve needed him.”

Two games in, the importance of his return is already being felt.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.