Mookie Betts says he feels 'awesome, normal' in return from illness that made him lose 18 pounds
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Betts has regained some weight, but will he be ready for Opening Day?
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He still might be down a few pounds, but Mookie Betts is apparently doing better.
The former MVP returned to the Los Angeles Dodgers' lineup on Tuesday, playing his usual shortstop and hitting his usual second, only two days after revealing to reporters he had lost 18 pounds due to an unidentified illness that made him incapable of eating solid foods without vomiting.
Betts missed the Dodgers' Tokyo Series games against the Chicago Cubs as well as every spring training game since, but was on the field before and during Tuesday's Freeway Series game against the Los Angeles Angels. He went 0-for-3 with no strikeouts while playing five innings of defense. None of his three balls in play were hit harder than 81.6 mph off the bat, per Baseball Savant.
More encouragingly, he said “I feel great, guys. Awesome. Normal," to reporters as he came in from on-field warm-ups. It was the second straight day of good news, as he also worked out Monday while Dodgers manager Dave Roberts reported he was keeping solid foods down.
Roberts said before the game Tuesday that he hoped Betts would get three at-bats and four or five innings of defense, then — assuming all went well — would be assessed Wednesday while taking some light at-bats. The Dodgers will face the Detroit Tigers on Opening Day Thursday.
When asked if there were lingering concerns about Betts' weight loss and dehydration, Roberts said Betts had already put some weight back on:
"[Being concerned about weight loss] was kind of the thought, but he has put weight back on in the last couple days, which we feel good about. The strength testing that he's done speaks to his strength, where it's at, which is a good thing. We've managed the dehydration piece of it, he's holding food down the last couple days, so all signs point toward turning a corner. We feel good about where he's at for tonight."
The condition, as Betts described it Sunday, sounds brutal. It's still not known what he exactly has, as tests of his vitals and blood have come back normal, but it's been afflicting him since March 11 and made him absolutely miserable during travel for the Tokyo Series. He was a late scratch before the Dodgers' season opener.
As he told reporters, his body simply didn't know what to do with food:
"My body's just kind of eating itself," he said. "It's hard to not fuel it. And so every time — literally, every time — I fuel my body, I throw up. ... I don't know what to do."
Betts is entering his 12th season and is one of the Dodgers' most irreplaceable players, and not just because of an eight-time All-Star track record. For a second-straight year, he is attempting a move to shortstop, a position that has vexed the Dodgers since Trea Turner left in free agency after the 2022 season.
Without Betts, the Dodgers would be likely to start one of Tommy Edman, Miguel Rojas or Kiké Hernández at short, hurting their relatively shallow depth at center field and second base.
