Mookie Betts Wants MLB to Change One Rule That Would End Games Early

Dodgers star Mookie Betts believes the sport of baseball is in a great spot. With all the additions to the game over the last few years from the pitch clock to enlarged bases to ABS, games are flying by, speed has returned to the sport and fans are more engaged than they were even five years ago.

There is one aspect of the game, however, that Betts would like to see go away.

“Once position players come in (to pitch), just call the game,” Betts said in an interview with Sports Illustrated on behalf of Corona. “That’s pretty much it. Once you’re down 10 [runs] and the position player comes in, just call it a day.”

Position players making an appearance on the mound used to be a rarity in baseball. Whenever a non-pitcher would toe the rubber, it would be celebrated as one of those off-beat moments only baseball can provide, as the position player would lob 65-mph eephus pitches toward the best hitters in the world and sometimes escape the inning with little to no damage.

Those position players pitching have led to plenty of entertaining moments over the years. Back in 2021, Anthony Rizzo struck out his pal Freddie Freeman with a big smile on his face. Brett Phillips once entered the game from the bullpen in a full sprint, and then debuted one of the most entertaining deliveries we’ve seen. The 5'9", 225-pound Willians Astudillo once recorded a 1-2-3 inning in relief while firing “fastballs” that were clocked at 46 mph.

However, it became too common as managers began using position players during blowouts to spare their bullpen on a frequent basis. According to MLB, there were just three instances of a position player pitching in 2008. That number jumped to 90 in 2019 and skyrocketed to an all-time high of 132 pitching appearances by position players in ’22.

Heading into the ’23 season, MLB updated its rulebook that position players could only enter the game in extra innings, or if their team is trailing by at least eight runs at any point, or if their team is winning by at least 10 runs in the ninth inning. The year prior, position players could enter at any time if the margin of a game was at least six runs.

Those rules decreased the number of position player appearances for a few seasons, but it jumped back up to 131 in 2025. Halfway through the ’26 season, there have been 83 relief appearances by 39 different position players. Rockies catcher Brett Sullivan is the leader in the clubhouse this season with six innings pitched across five appearances, all in blowout losses.

Betts is not a fan. He has just one plate appearance against a position player this season—a matchup against Pirates utilityman Tyler Callihan in the Dodgers’ 12-3 win on June 9—and he flew out to center field.

“It’s a lose-lose,” Betts told SI. “You get a hit, you’re supposed to. But it’s so hard to get a hit. It’s so hard to get that hit. And then if you get out, ah, you got out by a position player. I’d rather just go home at that point.”

Entering the All-Star break, Betts and the back-to-back champion Dodgers own the best record in baseball at 61–36. With a comfortable 11.5-game lead over the second-place Diamondbacks, Los Angeles looks like it will cruise to a fifth straight NL West title. Betts is having a down year at the plate overall, batting just .235/.293/.416 with 11 homers in 60 games and sporting a 95 OPS+, five points below league average, but there’s still plenty of time for him to turn things around.

Off the field, Betts is keeping plenty busy. He recently collaborated with Corona to launch the Beach Connect Series, a collection of limited-edition jerseys co-designed by several MLB stars: Betts, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Pete Crow-Armstrong, Ronald Acuna Jr, Jeremy Pena and Cristopher Sanchez.

Betts’s personalized “La Playa” jersey features a golf course across the chest and a bowling pin patch on the arm. Fans can enter sweepstakes to win one of these jerseys at CoronaUSA.com.

A look at the jersey Mookie Betts designed in collaboration with Corona. | Corona

“Bowling and playing golf keep me in the chill beach mindset where I can just relax,” Betts told SI.

After trying his hand at jersey design for the Corona collab, Betts told SI his five favorite jerseys in MLB are the Dodgers, Red Sox, Yankees, White Sox and Padres. But only if those teams keep their position players off the mound.

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