Mookie Betts offers no specific timeline on when he'll return from injury

Maddie Lee, Los Angeles Times on Apr 6, 2026

Published in Baseball

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TORONTO — Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts struck an optimistic tone in front of his locker at Rogers Centre on Monday. But neither he nor manager Dave Roberts put a date on the star’s return from a right oblique strain.

“Just as fast as possible,” Betts said. “But obviously, I know I need to be smart with obliques. They can kind of linger around, so be smart about it. But I’m not trying to take my time or anything, I want to play.”

Other than some very specific movements — Betts is shut down from hitting and throwing — he said he doesn’t notice the injury. He called it “much less severe” than the left oblique strain he sustained during his 2018 MVP season.

That injury came on a swing in the batting cage and sidelined him for about two weeks.

This time, there is some debate over exactly how Betts injured his oblique, which prompted him to be put on the 10-day injured list. Betts said it happened while running the bases to score on Freddie Freeman’s two-run double in the first inning against the Washington Nationals on Saturday. He was adamant that it wasn’t on a check swing.

“It was a perfectly normal day, so that’s why I don’t know where it came from, or how it happened,” he said. “I prepared. I’ve been doing it right, and I’ll give myself credit, I’ve been doing it right. So I don’t know where it came from other than just God sending a message.”

Because rotational injuries such as oblique strains are less commonly sustained while running, Roberts still buys into the theory that the injury originated on the check swing.

“But that there’s no one point, I think that’s a good thing,” Roberts said. “So yeah, we’re hopeful.”

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