Mookie Betts had gotten more experienced at shortstop over the last few seasons, but it is definitely still not his natural position.
The Los Angeles Dodgers star had one of the lowlights of the MLB season thus far on Tuesday night against the Atlanta Braves. Playing at short, Betts was attempting to turn a double play on a groundball by Atlanta’s Bryan De La Cruz in the second inning when things took a turn for the worse.
After receiving the underhand toss from second baseman Tommy Edman and stepping on the bag for one out, Betts could not get the baseball out of his glove cleanly and ended up firing an extremely hideous throw to first base. The throw was so badly off the mark that it ended up on the right field grass and trickled all the way to the wall down the third-base line.
As a result, the Braves, who had a runner on second base at the time, were able to score the game’s opening run and take a 1-0 lead. Here is the video.
Take a look below at a closer angle of the throw:
Betts, a former MVP, is a natural right fielder but started playing at both shortstop and second base for the Dodgers over the last handful of seasons (with Betts now serving as a full-time shortstop in 2025). There have been a few growing pains though, especially last year when Betts made nine errors in 65 appearances at short.
Still, we should probably cut Betts some slack here. He is off to a strong start to the season at the plate (hitting .385 with two homers and four RBI through his first three games) and recently overcame a scary illness that caused him to lose a lot of weight.
