A back injury cost Mookie Betts four games and delayed the franchise cornerstone’s debut in front of a home crowd at Dodger Stadium a little longer after a season of cardboard cutouts.
Finally, at 7:17 p.m. Tuesday, 427 days after the Dodgers acquired him from the Boston Red Sox, Betts was introduced to cheers for his first plate appearance in front of fans in Los Angeles as a member of the home team.
Two innings later, he gave the 15,121 people in attendance more to cheer about in the Dodgers’ 7-0 win over the Colorado Rockies when he cracked a moon shot down the left-field line for his second home run of the season.
The homer came in support of Trevor Bauer, who tossed seven scoreless innings in his home debut as a Dodger. The right-hander, who started his Dodgers career with six no-hit innings at Coors Field, yielded just one hit — an infield single to Garrett Hampson in the third inning. He recorded nine strikeouts to two walks and threw 99 pitches as the Dodgers (9-2) won their fourth straight game. The Rockies (3-8) have dropped four straight.
Rockies right-hander Antonio Senzatela, meanwhile, was chased after giving up five runs in 2 2/3 innings as his troubles at Dodger Stadium continued. The right-hander has surrendered 24 runs (23 earned) with 10 home runs in 26 2/3 innings across six starts at Dodger Stadium. That’s good for a 7.90 ERA.
The Dodgers also pummeled Senzatela at Coors Field in their second game of the season, scoring seven runs in 3 1/3 innings on April 2.
In all, only one Rockies starter has pitched into the fifth inning in five games against the Dodgers this season. Jon Gray was pulled after not recording an out in the sixth inning April 3. Gray is scheduled to start opposite Dustin May on Wednesday.
Tuesday’s final debut came in the eighth inning when David Price relieved Bauer in mop-up duty for his first appearance at Dodger Stadium since he arrived via trade with Betts after opting out of the 2020 season. The left-hander logged a perfect eighth inning with two strikeouts in his first outing in eight days.
The Dodgers took a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning on back-to-back home runs from Corey Seager and Chris Taylor off Senzatela. Seager hit the first pitch he saw — a 94 mph fastball — the other way for his first home run of the season. Two pitches later, Taylor smacked a slider to the wall in right-center field. Max Muncy’s blast in the sixth inning was the Dodgers' season-high fourth home run of the night.
Betts’ home run and the news preceding his return were the most encouraging.
“I think it was more of a scare than anything structural,” Betts said before the game. “Precautionary to make sure I didn’t make anything worse. Had a couple of tests done but everything came back really clean.”
Betts said he never dealt with a back injury before his back recently started bothering him. He doesn’t know how the discomfort surfaced, but it bugged him enough for the Dodgers to play it safe and have him sit last Wednesday in Oakland.
He explained that he felt the back pain only when he ran. He “turned the corner” over the weekend, but he said he stayed off the field until he felt the issue was behind him. The Dodgers went 3-1 without him, including a weekend three-game sweep of the Nationals.
“Running is a super-important thing for my game,” Betts said, “and so I didn’t want to limit myself too much when we have guys on the bench who can do plenty fine in this lineup. We won all but one game I didn’t play. So that just shows how deep we are and we don’t really need me.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the team will be more careful with Betts moving forward and give him more days off than initially planned. He said Betts will play Wednesday, but not in Thursday’s series finale. But he doesn’t expect Betts to be limited when on the field.
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