‘Sorry guys, he raised me’: Mookie Betts crashes Torey Lovullo’s NLDS press conference with a hug

Red Sox

The pair spent about three seasons together with the Red Sox as player and bench coach from 2014-16.

A couple of former Red Sox embraced one another before they go face-to-face in the National League Divison series.

Former Red Sox player Mookie Betts pressed pause on former Boston bench coach Torey Lovullo’s media availability on Friday to give him a hug. He apologized to the media for the inconvenience, but the reunion was very wholesome.

“Sorry guys, I gotta give him a hug,” the Los Angeles Dodger Betts said as he made his way up the podium where Arizona Diamondbacks manager Lovullo was speaking. “He raised me.”

The pair briefly hugged each other, both with smiles on their faces.

Lovullo made a quip at Betts, though, just over 24 hours before Game 1’s first pitch at Dodger Stadium.

“Good luck, but not really,” Lovullo said to Betts as he made his way back in front of the microphone.

The Diamondbacks’ manager and the Dodgers’ utility man spent about three seasons together with the Red Sox. Lovullo was the team’s bench coach from 2013-2016 and Betts’s MLB debut came in June 2014. He also served as Boston’s interim manager for the remaining seven weeks of the 2015 season after John Farrell was diagnosed with lymphoma.

Since Lovullo’s departure from Boston in 2016 and Betts’s in 2020, the pair have spoken highly about each other. When Arizona traveled to Boston in 2019 for a three-game series, Lovullo had nothing but good things to say about the player and the Red Sox’ young core from his time in Boston which also included players such as Xander Boagerts, Brock Holt, and Jackie Bradley Jr. in the mid-2010s.

“It’s always fun to go back and watch first-hand some of the young players I was around for so long,” Lovullo told The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham in April 2019. “One of them was arguably the best player in the league last year (2018); I’m excited to see Mookie.”