Dodgers News: Mookie Betts Doesn’t Expect Freddie Freeman Levels of Emotion in Reunion with Red Sox
For the first time since being traded to Los Angeles in 2020, Mookie Betts will play in Fenway Park against his former Boston Red Sox.
Betts, who is having an MVP-caliber season, won a World Series and American League MVP honors in 2018 with the Red Sox, where he spent the first six years of his MLB career.
Betts said that, although it has only been nearly four years since coming to LA, it feels like “forever ago.”
“I feel like I’ve been a Dodger for a long time, even though I haven’t,” Betts said. “So yeah, it does feel like that was a different chapter. I mean, it actually was. I was 21 to 28, didn’t have kids, all those things. So now I’m a completely different person.”
(Via The Orange County Register)
Betts said he is happy with the decision he made to leave Boston for the West Coast. He doesn’t know what going back to Fenway will stir up emotionally, but he sees few similarities in his situation and that of first baseman Freddie Freeman.
Freeman and his longtime team the Atlanta Braves failed to ink a contract extension despite mutual interest, and Freeman found solace in the Dodgers. When the Dodgers traveled to Atlanta last season, Freeman showed his emotions on multiple occasions.
“Me and Freddie’s situation is different,” Betts said. “I don’t necessarily need closure. It’s just cool to go back and see my roots.”
(Via The Orange County Register)
Betts is returning home during one of the hottest stretches of his career. In the last 21 games, the 30-year-old from Nashville is batting .463/.516/.817 with seven home runs and 21 RBIs. Over the last couple of days, he has seen his odds for NL MVP cut in half.
He said that because it has been multiple years, the turnaround on the Red Sox means there will be fewer familiar faces.
“It’s gonna be cool. Going right back would have been cool too,” Betts said. “I think either one. Just going back in general will be cool. If I had gone right back, it would have been different because I would have known more people. But now, I know very few people on the team. I don’t know what changes have been made in the organization, as far as simple stuff like clubbies and stuff like that, the people I came in contact the most with. I don’t know where those people are.”
(Via The Orange County Register)
The Dodgers will open their series against the Red Sox Friday afternoon at 4:10 p.m. PDT.
Photo Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
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