A stomach illness hasn’t slowed down the Dodgers’ star
After a soft start to the 2025 schedule, the Phillies will face a slight uptick in difficulty when the Los Angeles Dodgers come to town. The Dodgers are the defending champs, they have yet to lose a game in 2025, and their roster is laden with star power.
Want to know how good their roster is? Outfielder Mookie Betts would be the best player by far on most major league teams. But when you are teammates with the undisputed best player on the planet in Shohei Ohtani, not to mention MVP and Cy Young Award winners like Freddie Freeman and Blake Snell, Betts is just one more superstar in the clubhouse.
It’s a little easier to overlook Betts at the moment considering he’s lighter than he used to be. Towards the end of Spring Training, Betts contracted an illness that left him unable to consume solid food without vomiting.
“Everytime I eaten, I’ve thrown up.” Mookie Betts says he feels fine but can’t keep food down and has only gotten an IV in Tokyo.pic.twitter.com/cTPgUY1nnv
— Dodgers Tailgate (@DodgersTailgate) March 24, 2025
He had to miss the Dodgers’ season opening series in Japan, and it wasn’t clear if he’d be ready when the Dodgers reconvened play in America.
For most players, losing over 20 pounds in a couple of weeks would have ruined their season. But Betts isn’t most players. Since the Dodgers returned home, he’s appeared in five of their six games and has put up a .300/.364/.750 slash line. That includes a two-home run game against the Tigers, one of which was a game-winner.
MOOKIE BETTS WALK-OFF HOMER! UNBELIEVABLE! pic.twitter.com/PpYP5FpVcd
— MLB (@MLB) March 29, 2025
Betts has destroyed Phillies pitching throughout his career. In 32 games, he has a 1.120 OPS with 10 home runs. He was on the Injured List in 2024 for both series between the Phillies and Dodgers and that might partly explain why the Phillies were able to go 5-1 against them last season.
Let’s hope that the Phillies’ pitching staff has a solid game plan to deal with him. Because if a mystery stomach illness isn’t enough to stop him, I’m not sure what is.
2015 song of the series
When you can’t handle solid food like Betts, much like Gregory Porter suggests, you’d better embrace the Liquid Spirit.
Final thought about the series
It might be a good thing the Dodgers are undefeated coming into this series. It seems unlikely (although not impossible) that they’ll go 162-0 this year, so as talented as they are, there are probably some losses coming up for them soon.
This weekend they’ll be visiting a stadium where they’ve gone 1-5 the past two seasons and will face a tough trio of starters in Jesus Luzardo, Aaron Nola, and Cristopher Sanchez. I’ll predict that the Dodgers finally enter the loss column this weekend and then add another L to their total before it is done.