Mookie Betts returned from a five-week oblique IL stint on May 12 and went 1-for-5 in a 9-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants. The hero’s welcome lasted until about the third inning.
Angels fans, you are allowed to enjoy this.
The Dodgers have dropped 8 of their last 12 games. In nine of those 12, they scored three runs or fewer. The most expensive roster in baseball — defending two-time World Series champions — is struggling to push runners across the plate, and the best hitter on the planet is batting .111 in May with zero home runs since April 26. Shohei Ohtani’s wRC+ in May sits at 10. A replacement-level player posts around 50. The team’s overall May wRC+ of 99 is below average. The Dodgers aren’t just cold — they’re functionally broken offensively right now.
Betts seemed to understand the gravity of the situation even after his return. According to Dodgers Nation, he told reporters: “I know I’m not the hero. It’s going to take us all.” That’s an honest read, but it’s also a quietly alarming thing to hear from your best player on day one back.
The official welcome:
WELCOME BACK, Mookie Betts! pic.twitter.com/dsRz2LyKwW
— MLB (@MLB) August 13, 2024
One game in, already down six runs. The vibes were not immaculate.
What makes this stretch genuinely interesting — not just for Dodger-watchers but for anyone paying attention to the NL West — is that San Diego is right there. The Padres sit at approximately 24-17, leading the Dodgers by less than a game after LA fell out of first following the May 11 loss. The Diamondbacks are hovering at 20-21. This is not the Dodger machine that runs away with the division in April and everyone else spends May playing for second. The NL West is actually a race.
Now, the Dodgers have a Pythagorean record of 27-14, which tells you their underlying run differential is still elite — they’re outscoring opponents at a clip that should produce a better record. Cluster luck is real, and this stretch may look like noise by July. A team with Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Betts in the lineup doesn’t stay at a 10 wRC+ forever. The talent isn’t gone. But slumps this deep — especially when the best hitter in the game is functionally non-functional — can leave marks in the standings.
The thing that has me thinking about all this from an Angels fan’s perspective is the contrast it creates.
The Angels are 16-26. They are fourth in the AL West. The playoffs are not a topic of discussion in Anaheim. But while the Dodgers are spending hundreds of millions and losing 9-3 to the Giants on back-to-back days, José Soriano is quietly putting together one of the better pitching performances in the American League this year and nobody outside the fanbase seems to care.
Six wins. A 1.66 ERA. A 1.05 WHIP. Sixty-one strikeouts in 54.1 innings across nine starts. His ERA ranks third in the AL, his win total is second in the league, and he’s doing it for a team that gives him almost no margin for error. There are no Shohei Ohtanis in the lineup catching bad starts. Soriano has to be good, and he has been very good.
The projection systems think regression is coming — Steamer and ZiPS both see him settling somewhere in the 3.68-4.05 ERA range over a full season, which would still make him a solid mid-rotation starter on most teams. But the first two months of 2026 have been legitimately ace-level, and the Angels faithful deserve to know they’ve been watching something worth paying attention to while the rest of the AL West conversation revolves around Houston and Seattle.
The funny thing about being an Angels fan in a Dodger-saturated sports market is that you get used to the noise from the other side of LA. Big payrolls, big expectations, big October runs. This May, though, the Dodgers look like a team trying to figure themselves out, and the NL West standings for the first time in a while don’t feel predetermined.
Whether Betts’ ramp-up plan — Dave Roberts said he won’t play every day immediately, easing in over the next week — eventually jumpstarts the offense is the real question heading into the second third of the season. Ohtani has to come out of whatever fog he’s in. The Pythagorean record says the talent is real. But San Diego isn’t waiting, and the Dodgers no longer have the luxury of coasting.
Meanwhile, Soriano takes the mound every fifth day and keeps doing his thing. The Angels aren’t going anywhere in 2026. But at least there’s something worth watching.
