Mookie Betts Dazzles With Home Run, Spectacular Catch On Opening Day
BOSTON (CBS) -- When 20-year MLB veteran David Ortiz watches Mookie Betts play the game of baseball, he only sees one thing.
"Superstar," Ortiz said Tuesday in Cleveland. "Superstar. He's got that swag. He's got what the game needs right now, you know what I'm saying? Just gotta let that kid play and enjoy it. You don't see that every day."
That's certainly a ringing endorsement, but Betts was not lacking in supporters on Tuesday afternoon after his Opening Day performance against the Indians.
Betts got the Sox' 2016 scoring started when he turned on a 91-mph offering from Corey Kluber in the top of the third inning, sending it an estimated 407 feet into left field for a two-run home run.
It was a home run that Betts really didn't expect to hit.
"I hit a couple good in BP and they didn't make it to the warning track, so I figured today wasn't my day," he said after the Red Sox' 6-2 victory. "Fortunately it snuck over the fence."
Watch: Recap From Dan Roche
That wasn't the only highlight-reel play by Betts on the day, though.
With that 2-0 lead wiped away and the score tiedh, Rajai Davis crushed a line drive to right field to lead off the bottom of the fifth inning. Betts sprinted back, making a leaping effort, and he was able to reach up and snag the ball for the first out of the inning.
"Catch it. That was my first instinct," Betts said. Anything in my area, I gotta go get it."
David Price summed up the significance of that catch rather succinctly: "Needed it. Needed it."
Travis Shaw, in an Opening Day lineup for the first time of his career, was also rather impressed by the feat.
"Huge catch right there for him," Shaw said. It seemed like from that catch on, we were kind of in control for the rest of the game."
