It took over two weeks, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has finally acknowledged that what he has repeatedly called “…just a little lull” and “…a little funk,” is far more serious than that, after his team was swept by the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in a three-game series, of which two of the games were extra-inning affairs.

“Ultimately, we’ve lost games in extra innings, but I don’t think that’s the reason we’re losing baseball games,” a visibly upset Roberts told reporters following Wednesday night’s 11-inning 6–5 loss to the Cubs – their 13th loss in their last 17 games and sixth of seven in extra innings. “There’s a lot of things that lead to getting into extra innings. It’s just playing all around better baseball, every facet of the game.”

But there’s something else going on that Roberts has yet to acknowledge, at least outright; something that could be a key factor as to why his defending World Series Champions are now in third place in the National League West standings one-sixth of the way through the 2021 campaign – his best player, 28-year-old future Hall of Famer Mookie Betts, is mired in a horrible individual slump.

Through the Dodgers first 32 games, the Nashville, TN native and fifth-round draft pick in 2011 out of Overton High School in Nashville is 26-for-105 (.248), with a .358 on-base percentage, a .410 slugging percentage, and a .767 on-base plus slugging percentage. That’s the good news (if you can call it that). The bad news is that during the (thankfully) just-concluded three-game series with the Cubs, Betts went an un-Betts-like 3-for-13 (.231) with three strikeouts … all of them on Wednesday night. The worse news is that in his last 10 games, Betts has struck out 11 times, with a good many of those strikeouts looking.

“He’s taking more balls in the strike zone than he normally does, and he’s chasing more than he does,” Roberts said of Betts after the game. “Any time a guy does that, you can tell he might be thinking a little bit too much and in between.”

Unfortunately, when that “guy” is Mookie Betts, it affects the rest of the team as well. Granted, Betts most certainly is not the only slumping Dodger right now. In fact, the only Dodger not seriously slumping (at least not yet) is 36-year-old Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner, who is slashing .333 / .422 / .593 / 1.014, with seven home runs and 22 RBI.

But the painfully cold, hard truth is that: So goes Mookie, So go the Dodgers.

…and the Dodgers are not going very well right now.

Play Ball!

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