It’s one of those things that will be completely forgotten by the end of the season. In fact, it may already be forgotten by many already. But you can bet the farm that it won’t be forgotten by Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco or Phillies manager Pete Mackanin, or by the dozens of advanced scouts in attendance at Friday night’s Dodgers-Phillies game at Dodger Stadium.

When 21-year-old Dodgers rookie left fielder Cody Bellinger stepped to the plate for the first time on Friday he had played in a grand total of three major league games, was 1-for-10 at the plate (.100) and had been struck out in five of his 12 plate appearances. But in two of those plate appearances he also showed that he has an exceptional eye by drawing walks and even those five strikeouts came on very good pitches.

He drew a walk in that first at-bat on Friday.

But during that seven-pitch walk, the 21-year-old Chandler, Arizona native and son of former major leaguer Clay Bellinger notice something – the Phillies were in an exaggerated shift during his at-bat.

To their credit, the Phillies were already aware of Bellinger’s tremendous pull power and employed an exaggerated defensive infield shift on him – even after only four days in the major leagues.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka – Click on image to enlarge)

Sure enough, when the Dodgers’ 2013 fourth-round draft pick stepped to the plate for his second at-bat in the bottom of the fourth inning, the Phillies infield was again in a shift, expecting the 6′-4″ / 210-pound left-handed-hitting Bellinger to pull the ball to the right side of the infield.

He did not.

Instead, the newest (and youngest) Dodger pushed a perfectly executed bunt down the third base line where Franco had absolutely zero chance to field the ball in time to throw out the (very) speedy Bellinger, who would come around to score in the Dodgers eventual 5-3 win.

What the Phillies didn’t have in their book on Bellinger was his ability to beat the shift with a perfectly executed first-pitch bunt down the third base line. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Like many baseball old-schoolers, I am not and have never been a big fan of defensive shifts. Ironically, I have also never been a big fan of non-pitchers bunting, except in obvious sacrifice situations and an occasional surprise suicide squeeze bunt. But by that very same token, I am a fan of smart baseball players – even one playing in his fourth major league game – to defeat the shift in any way possible … including dropping a bunt ‘where they ain’t,’ as did Bellinger.

The obvious advantage to the young Dodger outfielder’s heads-up play is that Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco and Phillies manager Pete Mackanin will think twice before automatically putting on a shift against Bellinger in the future. The other obvious advantage is that every one of those advanced scouts in the house on Friday night will have Bellinger’s name underlined in red and highlighted in florescent yellow for his ability to bunt extremely efficiently to beat the shift.

Well played young man. Well played indeed.