If you had a dollar for every time 26-year-old Dodgers outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger struck out on a high fastball during his injury-shortened 2021 regular season, you’d have quite a few dollars. In fact, of his 94 strikeouts in the 95 regular-season games in which he played, it’s probably safe to say that (at least) three-quarters of them were on fastballs that were up and/or out of the strike zone; thus accounting for his dismal .165 / .240 / .303 / .542 slash line, with an un-Bellinger-like 10 home runs and only 36 RBI. And make no mistake about it, every opposing pitcher was very well aware of this – even 30-year-old Atlanta Braves right-hander Luke Jackson.

It is no longer the regular season. It is October.

On Tuesday afternoon in Game-3 of the 2021 National League Championship Series and in front of a soldout Dodger Stadium crowd of 51,307, Jackson tried to throw a high 95.6-MPH four-seam fastball past Bellinger; so high, in fact, that it was a good 10 inches above the strike zone.

Luke Jackson did not throw his high 95.6-MPH four-seam fastball past Cody Bellinger.

Instead, the Scottsdale, AZ native and Dodgers fourth-round draft pick in 2013 out of Hamilton High School in Chandler, AZ was (somehow) able to square it up enough to send it 444 feet into the Right Field Pavilion for a game-tying three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning, en route to a historic 6-5 come-from-behind win over the Braves.

“Pure enjoyment,” Bellinger said postgame. “In the moment, it’s loud. You don’t really hear anything, and you don’t really see anything.”

“We were dead in the water,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of what it felt like before Belli’s blast. “You could see it. Luke’s coming in and throwing 97 miles an hour, and you get a squibber, you get AJ (Pollock) riding a base hit up the middle. To get behind in the count and to hit a homer, it just flipped everything.

“It was as loud as I’ve heard Dodger Stadium after that homer,” Roberts added.

It also helped prevent the Dodgers from going down three games to none in the best-of-seven NLCS, with the winner advancing to the 2021 World Series.

“It’s just hard to imagine a bigger hit that I can remember, really. Just kind of what was at stake,” Roberts said. “And couldn’t be happier for him.”

The Dodgers added another run in that incredible inning that would prove to be the game-winner.

Following Bellinger’s one-out blast, Dodgers center fielder Chris Taylor singled to left and advanced to second base on a ground out by pinch-hitter Matt Beaty. And then, just as he has done countless times during his eight-year and eventual Hall of Fame career, right fielder Mookie Betts roped a two-out double to Braves right fielder (and former Dodger) Joc Pederson, allowing Taylor to score.

But Wait … There’s More!

With the Dodgers now leading 6-5, Roberts called upon his ‘go-to’ closer, 34-year-old right-hander Kenley Jansen – who was nothing short of sensational down the stretch of the regular season and has been thus far into the postseason – to pitch the ninth. Jansen struck out the Braves in order, including always-dangerous ‘Joctober,’ needing only 17 pitches to do so.

As for that historic thing, this was the 82nd time in Dodgers postseason history that they trailed by three-plus runs in the eighth inning or later. It’s the first time they won such a game.

Play Ball!

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(Title credit: @ladmvip)

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