Dodgers notes: Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw, Freddie Freeman

Mookie Betts was a guest on Foul Territory on Friday, and talked about a number of topics, including turning down contract offers from Boston, what he’d do as commissioner, Shohei Ohtani, and Betts’ last-place finish in the Home Run Derby.

“The Home Run Derby was probably the wors ideas I had in a long time. I’m just not built that way,” he said. “I know how to hit line drives and they occasionally go over the fence. But it was fun though.”

Betts’ segment starts at about an hour, eight minutes into this video:

Betts said the only way he’d consider ever competing in the Home Run Derby again is if his son Kaj, who was just born in April, ever asks him to.

Clayton Kershaw and sometimes offseason throwing partner Chris Young, former pitcher who is now the general manager of the Rangers, have a friendship that extends beyond baseball. Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic wrote about the pair, and how Kershaw’s pending free agency plays into the relationship, heading into this weekend series with the Dodgers in Texas.

Freddie Freeman is punishing four-seam fastballs better than any batter in baseball against any particular pitch, which Cole Jacobson wrote about at MLB.com.

Dave Roberts told reporters Friday in Texas that Jake Marisnick will miss at least three weeks with his left hamstring strain.

Patrick Dubuque at Baseball Prospectus looked at the necessary yet fraught exercise of trading for relief pitchers at the trade deadline. “But largely, for relievers even more than other players, the trade deadline is Elmer’s Glue on a glass vase,” he wrote.

Annette O’Malley, wife of longtime Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, died on Wednesday. From Beth Harris’ obituary of O’Malley at the Associated Press:

She made many trips abroad with her husband to support the sport, including visiting Japan over 25 times. Among their destinations were Canada, China, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan and Venezuela.

In 1984, South Korea Baseball Commissioner General Jyong Chul-Suh invited Annette to throw the ceremonial first pitch for Game 7 of the Korea Championship Series in Seoul between the professional Lotte Giants and Samsung Lions.