TOKYO — Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts won’t be available for Opening Day and will not take part in either of the two Tokyo Series games against the Chicago Cubs due to a lingering illness, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said on Monday.
The Dodgers are currently contemplating sending the former MVP home early to Los Angeles to continue to recuperate.
“That’s on the table,” Roberts said.
Roberts said the hope is still that Betts, a six-time Gold Glove winner who is again attempting to play shortstop in an unprecedented transition, will be able to play starting with the Dodgers’ home opener on March 27 against the Detroit Tigers.
Betts contracted the illness shortly before the team boarded its flight to Tokyo on Wednesday and did not take part in either of the team’s two initial workouts at the Tokyo Dome. He took ground balls before each of the Dodgers’ two exhibition games against the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers but showed clear signs of fatigue, at one point dropping to a knee for close to a minute between rounds. He was not at the Dodgers’ voluntary workout on Monday, ahead of Tuesday’s season opener.
Betts is “still trying to find his way,” Roberts said, hoping to regain weight and strength. Roberts said the Dodgers are still trying to pinpoint how Betts got sick.
“There’s still debate (about what caused it),” Roberts said. “I just don’t think what you eat would last a week.”
Whatever the illness was has had lingering effects; Roberts noted that at one point Betts had lost 15 pounds and was severely dehydrated. The issue is not believed to be contagious, however, as none of the other 31 players in the Dodgers’ traveling party are experiencing any symptoms.
“The thing is when you lose a lot of weight, when you’re dehydrated, that’s what opens a person up to soft-tissue injuries,” Roberts said. “We’re very mindful of that. So to take the next week … to build him back up, his strength, do some baseball activities to get ready for the home opener.”
At the very least, it’s a brief interruption of what is expected to be a critical start to the season for Betts, who said he is looking to shed some of the “embarrassment” he felt in his first full-time foray at shortstop last spring when he was the team’s surprise Opening Day starter at the position at the Gocheok Skydome in Seoul, South Korea. Last year, Betts had about 15 days’ notice to play a position he hadn’t played on a full-time basis since he was in high school. The experiment a year ago lasted until June, when Betts broke his wrist on a hit by pitch. When he returned, he did so in right field.
Betts spent the winter preparing to handle the shortstop full-time, saying he progressed from an A-ball caliber defender at the position to one capable of playing there on an everyday basis. The Dodgers do have contingencies in place that they’ll tap into for these two games against Cubs left-handers Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele: Roberts said that veteran Miguel Rojas will play both games at shortstop.
(Photo: John E. Moore III / Getty Images)
