Mookie Betts' resurgence has somehow become one of baseball's most underrated arcs

Through more than half of the 2025 season, Mookie Betts did what no Dodger fan thought was possible: he became a total liability for the Dodgers' offense. Through July 30, he was batting .240 with a .681 OPS — by far his worst numbers through that date in any full season he'd ever played. He was benched a few times and moved back to the leadoff spot, but nothing looked like it was working.

In mid-August, Betts admitted that he had exhausted every option and had given up on his season, but he would still come to ballpark and just do his best to help the team win. Ever since, he's been playing like an MVP again.

MLB.com's David Adler did a deep dive into Betts' numbers since Aug. 5. He has a .987 OPS since that date, which is the 10th-highest in baseball. His .352 average is the fifth-highest, and he has the third -lowest strikeout rate in the game.

Betts won't be winning any awards this season, but his comeback has somehow gotten buried under a lot of other Dodgers storylines in the past few months (most of them pretty ugly). But with over a month of MVP-level play, it seems like whatever he's doing is sustainable, and that's unbelievably good news for the rest of the Dodgers' season.

Mookie Betts has become a top-10 player in baseball again despite sustained first-half struggles for Dodgers

In around five weeks, Betts has doubled his WAR on the season and is on track to top his 4.8 fWAR from 2024, the year he got his eighth All-Star nod, received MVP votes for the eighth time, and won his seventh Silver Slugger.

In 32 games since Aug. 5, he's only gone seven games without getting at least one hit and has 15 multi-hit games. On Wednesday against the Rockies, he went 4-for-5 at the plate with a double and a homer (his fourth of the month so far) and five RBI, a season high and the most runs he's driven in in a single game since March 21, 2024.

It's impossible for one player to save an entire team, and the Dodgers have been playing barely over .500 baseball since Betts' ascendance began on Aug. 5, but having him back to his usual self again is only a good thing for the team as a whole. The Dodgers have a lot of other problems they need to sort out, but Betts isn't one of them anymore.