Mookie Betts’ season took a tragic turn off the field.
Betts was mysteriously absent from Friday’s and Saturday’s lineup against his former team, the Boston Red Sox, with what the Dodgers called personal issues.
Betts explained to reporters after he returned on Sunday, a 4-3 loss to Boston, that he was dealing with the passing of his stepfather and had flown home to Tennessee to be with his family.
“My stepdad passed,” Betts told reporters. “So I needed to go home, be with my mom, somebody that’s been there in my life from fourth grade until now. So, that was tough for me and the family, but I just needed to be there for my mom and my brothers and sisters.”
“So, it’s just a tough time, and there’s no real way to really explain something like that outside of just being there and spending time with the family,” Betts added.
Betts’ parents, Diana Benedict and Willie Betts, divorced when he was a child.
Betts flew back to Boston by himself on Saturday and appeared as a pinch hitter in the game, although he struck out in that lone at-bat.
Betts, 32, spent the first six years of his career in Boston before being traded to the Dodgers in 2020.
He’s been highly productive in his time in Los Angeles, helping them win two World Series, although this has been a particularly a tough year, both on and off the field.
He started the season on the bench with a mystery illness that left him unable to eat solid foods.
At the start of the year, Betts was weighing 157 pounds and saying that his body was “kind of eating itself.”
He is hitting a career-low .240 with 11 home runs and 48 RBIs in 97 games played for the first-place Dodgers.