Dodgers counting on Mookie Betts to transform teams dormant offense

There was a time when Mookie Betts’ return would have felt like an automatic cure for an out-of-sorts offense.Today, what his renewed presence means to the Dodgers is less certain.The player who was once capable of carrying a team is now 33 years old, and the Dodgers don’t know which version of Betts they will activate from the injured list.The Betts who contended for the Most Valuable Player award annually? Or the Betts who was a virtual nonfactor on offense for the last season and a half? After a two-game minor-league rehabilitation assignment, Betts is expected to rejoin the team Monday for the start of a four-game series against the Giants at Dodger Stadium.Manager Dave Roberts said Betts will “probably” be in the No.2 or 3 spot of the Dodgers’ recently impotent lineup but was otherwise careful in how he described the shortstop’s comeback.Asked how much of his team’s recent offensive problems could be attributed to Betts’ absence, Roberts said, “It’s part of it.

It’s certainly not all of it.”Roberts wasn’t wrong about that.With only one home run in his last 22 games, Shohei Ohtani has looked like a leadoff hitter worth about $2 million, which, in fairness to the two-way player, is the amount he will actually receive from the team this year.Teoscar Hernandez is batting .238, Kyle Tucker .248, Will Smith .261 and Freddie Freeman .267.Of the team’s established players, the only one who is taking decent swings is Max Muncy, and he was on the wrong side of a spectacular play in a 7-2 loss to the Braves on Sunday.With the Dodgers down by four runs in the sixth inning, Muncy was robbed of a bases-loaded extra-base hit by Eli White, who made an overhead catch on the warning track and held on to the ball after a face-first crash into the right field wall.The Dodgers dropped the last two games of the three-game series against the Braves.

They scored only seven runs the entire series and managed two hits in the finale.“There’s some empty ...