This story was excerpted from Sonja Chen’s Dodgers Beat newsletter. Manny Randhawa pinch-hit for this edition.To read the full newsletter, click here . And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

“It” being the essence of his game, that unseeable element that you can’t quite describe but know is central to his success -- what if it vanishes?

After he was racked by an undiagnosed stomach illness this past spring, when he said he felt like his body was “eating itself,” that’s what happened to Mookie Betts . And it’s been a sobering season for the Dodgers’ star shortstop.

“You go through all the phases,” Betts said. “You go through anger, then you’re sad. I don’t even know what all the phases are, but at the end is acceptance. And once you get through the acceptance phase,

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