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SAN FRANCISCO – For a brief fleeting moment – the time it took for San Francisco Giants reliever Dominic Leone’s sixth inning fastball to move from his hand to the plate – Cody Bellinger looked like the guy who was the National League 2019 MVP.
Bellinger was balanced and quick, two elements of a successful strike that have eluded him all season. The result was a two-point brace down center left that gave the Dodgers a 4-1 lead and set the stage for what became a 9-2 win in the NLDS Game 2 on Saturday.
Bellinger has reached .165 with a .542 OPS this season, unbelievably bad numbers for a player who reached .305 with 47 home runs and 1,035 OPS in his MVP season. Injuries were a big factor. He’s only played 95 games this year, and a season-long shoulder injury limited his swing coverage and eroded his confidence.
When not rushing over low speed pitches in the dirt, he would step over and get stuck on fastballs indoors. He’s been so bad for so long that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has had to answer repeated questions about why he continues to put Bellinger in roster.
And then Leone came into the game to replace starter Kevin Gausman, accompanied Chris Taylor to load the goals, and shot a fastball which Bellinger laced aside to the left center. The look on his face as he stopped in the second looked something like a 19 highlight reel.
“Mentally I don’t see how that could hurt him,” Roberts said with a laugh. “There can only be advantage. He wanted to use most of the pitch, and for him to be rewarded it was huge. I think there was a big weight lifted on his. shoulders.”
The 6-7-8 Dodgers hitters were 0 for 9 with 5 strikeouts in Game 1 but 5 for 10 with two walks and four RBIs in Game 2. AJ Pollock and Bellinger were the main culprits in the game. 1, choosing to sway pretty much anyway. the flight of the ball.
Bellinger was struck out three times in Game 2, but Pollock had two hits and followed Bellinger’s two-run brace with one of his own, ending the competitive part of the night.
“When you do nine points, obviously everyone will feel like your approach is right,” Pollock said. “If you put zero, no one will like it.”
A long season is like fluorescent lighting, harsh and ruthless, exposing every flaw. Once teams felt Bellinger’s fly rod swing couldn’t adjust to speed, he only had high fastballs he couldn’t catch and low breaking pitches. that he couldn’t reach.
The Dodgers have insisted that the issue isn’t so much Bellinger’s mechanics or health as his approach, which is another way of putting his state of mind, which is another way of saying that he appears – with the exception of one at bat in Game 2 – – not to have the confidence that made him the 2019 MVP.
Bellinger has always displayed an uncommon level of maturity at his age – he’s still only 26. When asked before the game how he handles all analysis of his swing, Bellinger said, “Well, how I do it right now. I get asked the question, and I answer it.”
When asked where he was right now, Bellinger said, “I feel 100%, you know? I don’t know how my body is, but I feel really good.”
Bellinger went into cliché mode after the game, choosing to deflect discussions on a personal rebirth by talking about doing his job and playing the situation, which could have been the three strikeouts. Yet with a swing in Game 2, as another strikeout would have resulted in more disgusted bat flips on the way back to the dugout and more questions about his usefulness as a player of all the days, Bellinger put a swing on the ball.
Suddenly, but still – he managed to change the present and evoke the past.
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