This story was excerpted from Juan Toribio’s Dodgers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

LOS ANGELES -- Coming into the spring, Gavin Lux knew there would be ups and downs this season as he fully recovered from a torn ACL and LCL that cost him the entire 2023 campaign.

What even Lux didn’t see coming was for the Dodgers to make a fast switch at shortstop, giving the keys to the car to Mookie Betts just a few games into Cactus League play. At first, there was understandable disappointment for Lux. He has been preparing to be the starting shortstop for the Dodgers since getting drafted in 2019.

As he dealt with the disappointment of not getting a chance to live that dream out this season, Lux’s phone kept blowing up with reinforcing messages. The internet, on the other hand, was much more cruel, even suggesting that Lux had suffered a case of the yips, something that no baseball player ever wants to be accused of having.

“You just try to stay off that mental roller coaster as much as possible,” Lux said. “I think I’ve done a good job of that now.”

The process of getting his season back on track started by getting off X. But far more impactful for Lux, was the work he began putting in with Brian Cain, a sports mental skills coach that was recommended to the 26-year-old by teammate Kiké Hernández.

Hernández, who got off to a poor start defensively with the Red Sox last year, understood the disappointment Lux was going through. He lived that experience just a calendar year ago. That’s when he felt the need to approach Lux and put him in touch with Cain.

“It’s something that I always put aside and never thought I needed one,” Hernández said. “Now that I’ve been working with one for over a year, the frustration is that I wish I would’ve started earlier in my career.”

Lux didn’t need much convincing. He immediately took Hernández up on his offer and met with Cain during Spring Training. The exercises are as simple as flipping your thoughts after the game into more positive scenarios, breathing techniques and mental imagery. It also includes writing down thoughts into a journal that help put the final stamps to a day.

“It’s just about having a process and routine when stuff speeds up and how to deal with it in a game,” Lux said. “Once the game is done, I get in the shower -- I sit at my locker and give myself a couple minutes to think about whatever. But once I get in the shower it’s kind of like washing everything away. Once I get home, I try not to think about baseball at all until you come to work the next day and then that routine starts all over again.”

Initially, Lux didn’t know how long he was going to stick with Cain and his process. But after seeing the early returns, Lux has stayed with the routine and plays to use it moving forward. One thing was understanding there would be ups and downs to a season, another is finding ways to turn the page, Lux said.

“You put in the work and then you slowly start to see the results and the changes in the way that your brain is wired and things like that,” Hernández said. “I think it’s something that’s going to be very beneficial for him.”

Now, even with just over a month of putting in that work, Lux feels like he’s right where he needs to be.

“I think getting to Korea and playing games that mean something and having that adrenaline, I think that helped a ton, too,” Lux said. “I think right now, it took me a little bit. But I feel a lot more like myself now.”