Mookie Betts wins National League player of the month for August

Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts had one of the great months in franchise history in August, and for his efforts was named National League player of the month on Sunday.

Betts punctuated his stellar month with two home runs in Thursday’s series opener against the Braves, nearly bringing the Dodgers all the way back from an early six-run deficit. His three hits on Thursday gave Betts 19 multi-hit contests in the 28 games he played during August.

In all for the month, Betts hit a stunning .455/.516/.839 with 11 home runs, 10 doubles, and 30 RBI. He set Los Angeles Dodgers records with 51 hits and 35 runs scored, numbers not topped in franchise history since the 1930s in Brooklyn.

During August, Betts led the majors in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS (1.355), wRC+ (265), hits, home runs, total bases (94), and runs scored. He was only one off the RBI lead, behind old friend Cody Bellinger.

Betts’ .455 batting average was the fourth-highest in a month in Dodgers history, and the highest by any major league player since Jose Altuve hit .485 in July 2017.

During August, Betts won National League player of the week once, for the week of August 21-27, in which he had 16 hits in 26 at-bats on a road trip through Cleveland and Boston, the latter his first time back at Fenway Park since the Red Sox traded Betts to the Dodgers.

On the season, Betts has already set a career high with 38 home runs with still a month left to play. He currently leads the National League in OPS (1.034), OPS+ (175), wRC+ (177), slugging percentage (.622), total bases (315), Baseball Reference WAR (7.8), and FanGraphs WAR (7.8).

Surprisingly, this is just the second career player of the month award for Betts, who took home American League honors in July 2016 while with the Red Sox. Betts is the second Dodgers player this season to win player of the month, joining Freddie Freeman, who hit .400/.462/.722 in May.