Red Sox MVP Mookie Betts comes to life in Game 2 of ALCS

Ted Berg USA TODAY Sports

Published 12:32 AM EDT Oct 15, 2018

BOSTON — “When Mookie’s smiling, good things are happening,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora after his club’s 7-5 win over the Astros in Game 2 of the ALCS on Sunday.

Right fielder Mookie Betts was decidedly not smiling in his team’s clubhouse after a Game 1 loss on Saturday. Betts, speaking quietly to the mob of reporters at his locker, stressed then that the Red Sox managed to move on from tough losses throughout their 108-win season and that he believed they would do it in this series, but sounded hard on himself for grounding out with the bases loaded and Justin Verlander seemingly on the ropes in the fifth inning.

“I just didn’t get the job done,” Betts said Saturday. “It was a fastball right down the middle, I just didn’t put a good swing on it, and didn’t get the job done. I need to do my part. I haven’t been doing it.”

Betts, the presumptive favorite for the AL MVP Award after a regular season that saw him hit .346 with a 1.078 OPS, entered Sunday’s Game 2 only 4-for-20 – a .200 average – with one extra-base hit in the 2018 postseason.

But players like Betts don’t stay cold long. Before Sunday’s game, Astros manager A.J. Hinch called the outfielder “one of the most dynamic hitters of the game” and a “ticking time bomb” in the series. The 26-year-old needed all of five pitches to explode on Sunday.

Leading off against Astros starter Gerrit Cole, Betts worked a 3-1 count before lacing a 96-mph fastball off the center-field wall for a double. He’d come around to score the Red Sox’s first run on an Andrew Benintendi single one batter later.

“He was able to stay in the middle of the ballpark, and it was good,” Cora said. “And I saw him smiling, which is always good.”

Betts would later draw a walk in the seventh and come around to score by making a great read on a passed ball. In the eighth, his RBI double to center field padded the Sox’s lead. After the game, Betts deferred credit.

“I just go out and do what I can to help the team win,” he said. “Try to be consistent in having some good at-bats, and getting some timely hits and whatnot. But it’s not just me – we’ve got 25 guys out there.”

David Price, the Red Sox starter in the game, was a bit more eager to sing Betts’ praises.

“He’s Mookie Betts,” Price said. “He’s the MVP of our team. He’s the MVP of baseball. He means a great deal for us.”

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If the Sox’s come-from-behind win Sunday got Betts smiling, his performance should have his teammates beaming: Betts, playing at his best, is too good to be neutralized by even an elite pitching staff like the Astros’, a gifted contact hitter with patience, power and speed, and a huge part of why the Boston club won 108 games in the regular season.

“We went out and did our thing,” Betts said. “We have some good bats in our lineup, and I think when that lineup is extended and you start getting guys on base throughout the whole lineup, it makes for a long day for the pitcher.”

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