The Dodgers’ Mookie Betts takes swings during the team’s workout Thursday ahead of Game 6. Lance McMillan / Toronto Star via Getty Images

TORONTO — Mookie Betts will hit cleanup in Game 6 of the World Series — the lowest he has hit in a lineup since 2017 — as the struggling shortstop and the Los Angeles Dodgers look to keep their season alive.

Betts is 3 for 22 in this series against the Toronto Blue Jays, and 9 for 55 over the last three rounds of this postseason. He bluntly assessed his struggles after the Dodgers’ Game 5 loss, saying, “I’ve just been terrible.”

Game 5 was Betts’ first time hitting third since September 2021, with manager Dave Roberts looking to shake things up for a struggling lineup that has scored four runs over their last 29 innings.

In Game 6, Roberts will flip Betts with Freddie Freeman, allowing the Dodgers to alternate lefties and righties through the first four hitters against Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman.

The Dodgers will also have Tommy Edman starting in center field for the first time this season, with Miguel Rojas playing second base and hitting ninth, a spot where the Dodgers have been unable to generate much offense in front of Shohei Ohtani.

Edman has been playing through a balky right ankle for months that has made the Dodgers reluctant to have him in the outfield — much less on the Rogers Centre turf — but is now doing so when facing elimination.

The hope is to reconfigure things and create a spark in a Dodgers offense that hasn’t caught its rhythm this postseason, especially in this series against Toronto.

“I think right now, we got to find a way to win one game,” Roberts said during Thursday’s workout in Toronto. “I could dive into my thoughts, but I think at the end of the day, they just have to compete and fight in the batter’s box. And it’s one-on-one, the hitter versus the pitcher, and that’s it. Really. I mean, I think that that sort of mindset is all I’ll be looking for and expect good things to happen from that.”

Oct 31, 2025

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Fabian Ardaya is a staff writer covering the Los Angeles Dodgers for The Athletic. He previously spent three seasons covering the crosstown Los Angeles Angels for The Athletic. He graduated from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in May 2017 after growing up in a Phoenix-area suburb. Follow Fabian on Twitter @FabianArdaya