When Mookie Betts made his Red Sox debut in June of 2014, there was hope he would be an All-Star level talent who could play multiple positions, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a group of people who thought he'd be this good.
Coming off an MVP season and a Wolrd Series championship, Betts has struggled to produce near the standard he set for himself a year ago. But on Friday night, he and the Red Sox may have finally turned a corner in getting last year's mojo back after hitting three home runs against the Yankees in as many at-bats.
Betts exited Friday's game with 574 career runs scored, which bests all of baseball since he made his major-league debut five years ago.
Barring a cataclysmic slump at the plate, Betts will cross the 100-run mark for the fourth consecutive season. He led the majors last year with 129, and leads all of baseball again this year with 96 runs.
Scoring runs typically involves a great supporting cast around you, and it certainly has helped Betts' career totals batting in front of sluggers like David Ortiz and J.D. Martinez, but you have to get on base quite a bit to be in those situations. But it's not just about reaching safely, it's getting in scoring position constantly.
In each of his four full seasons with the Red Sox (excluding the 52 games he played as a rookie), Betts has been one of the league's best at hitting doubles and putting himself in prime position to come around to score.
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Mookie's Double totals (MLB rank):
2015 - 42 (6)
2016 - 42 (6)
2017 - 46 (3)
2018 - 47 (3)
Betts has proven to be one of the league's best overall players in his short time with the Red Sox, and it won't take long for him to join the game's all-time best. He just needs time to reach those milestones.
As the incredibly talented right-fielder approaches a new contract, the Red Sox will have to make a decision of whether to pay him record amounts of money or risk letting him walk to another city. If he continues his progress towards the level of production we saw in 2018, Boston may not have a decision to make at all.
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