With the meteoric rise by the youngest Dodger on the team – 21-year-old first baseman / outfielder Cody Bellinger – the Dodgers front office is looking for ways to not only keep their blazing hot 2013 fourth-round draft pick on their 25-man roster but in their every day lineup.

Although there has been considerable talk about sending the young Chandler, Arizona native and son of former major leaguer Clay Bellinger back to Triple-A Oklahoma City when Dodgers everyday center fielder Joc Pederson and everyday second baseman Logan Forsythe are set to be reinstated from the disabled list on Friday, Bellinger’s excellent play and red hot bat are forcing Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Farhan Zaidi to reconsider their options. I mean, let’s be honest here, Bellinger has given the slow-starting Dodgers a boost of energy that now has them a mere two games behind the NL West division-leading Arizona Diamondback and two games over .500 – something that they did not enjoy prior to Bellinger’s April 25 promotion to the big league club.

If Bellinger’s two home runs on April 29 against the Philadelphia Phillies wasn’t enough to convince the Dodgers brass to keep him up, his bases-clearing opposite field triple on Tuesday night should be.
(Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

But in order for Bellinger to remain up with the Dodgers, someone will have to either be optioned back to OKC or designated for assignment. And while the Dodgers on Tuesday optioned struggling utility outfielder / first baseman Scott Van Slyke to Triple-A OKC to make room for a returning Franklin Gutierrez – who hit a very long home run in his first game back on Tuesday night – all of a sudden utility infielder / outfielder Kiké Hernandez becomes a far better option to… well, option back to Oklahoma City than Bellinger.

Why, you ask?

The answer to that is blatantly obvious. Kiké is currently sitting on a slash-line of .216 / .281 / .490 for an OPS of .771 in the 22 games in which he has appeared in thus far this season. By comparison, Bellinger has already amassed a major league slash-line of .345 / .406 / .665 for an insane OPS of 1.061.

Now granted, eight games at the major league level (every game the Dodgers have played since Bellinger’s call-up) is a ridiculously small sample size, but he has given absolutely no indication of slowing down and actually appears to be getting better with every additional at-bat, especially over the last six games.

The point here is that earlier claims that Hernandez is/was the Dodgers best back-up center field option for Pederson instead of Chris Taylor (and now Cody Bellinger) no longer holds water, although many Dodger fans believed that Hernandez was never the better option. But with the immediate and incredible rise of young Cody Bellinger, the Dodgers would now be negligent to send Belly back to OKC over Kiké, who still has one option year remaining.

Make the right call, Dodgers.