Fans who closely followed 25-year-old Dodgers outfielder / first baseman Cody Bellinger during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 regular season are very well aware that the 2017 National League Rookie of the Year, 2019 Gold Glove and Silver Slugger winner, two-time All-Star, and reigning National League MVP had anything but an MVP-caliber season. In fact, the Scottsdale, AZ native and Dodgers fourth-round draft pick in 2013 out of  Hamilton High School in Chandler, AZ, finished the 60-game regular season with an un-Bellinger-like .239 / .333 / .455 / .789 slash line, with 42 strikeouts and 30 walks. He did, however, slug 12 home runs while driving in 30, to finish fourth and fifth respectively for the eight-time consecutive NL West Division champion Dodgers.

But the 2020 regular season is over.

During the brief best-of-three 2020 NL Wild Card Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Bellinger went 2-for-7 (.286), with no home runs, no RBI, no walks, and two strikeouts in the two-game sweep of the Brew Crew; better, but nothing like the Bellinger that we all know and love.

But the 2020 Wild Card Series is over.

Through the first two games of the best-of-five 2020 National League West Division Series against the San Diego Padres (albeit after only eight plate appearances), Belli is 2-for-7 with two RBI. However, and this is a huge ‘however,’ one of those two hits was a mammoth 447-foot home run he hit over the center field wall of Globe-Life Park in Arlington, TX on Wednesday night.

The Dodgers would go on to win the game by a score of 6-5, but that’s a story in and of itself. It’s what Bellinger did on defense in the top of the seventh inning that sent the baseball world into a frenzy.

With two outs and a runner on first base and the Dodgers clinging to a precarious 4-3 lead, Padres superstar slugger and legitimate 2020 NL MVP candidate Fernando Tatis Jr. crushed a 99.3-mph slider off of Dodgers rockstar right-hander Brusdar Graterol the cleared the wall in straightaway center field for the third out.

Wait, what, you say?

Yes, the ball cleared the wall in straightaway center field, but it did not clear the leaping outstretched glove of Dodgers center fielder Cody Bellinger.

“I knew he hit it, so it was either, ‘That’s gone off the black screen,’ or, ‘I’m going to get to the wall and maybe have a chance to catch it,'” Bellinger told reporters (via Zoom) after the game. “I just kind of turned around as fast as I could, got to the fence, and saw that it was robbable, so I decided to try to time up the jump. That’s how it worked out.”

“Great players make great plays in big moments, and Cody did just that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the highlight reel catch that we will be seeing replays of for years to come. “Man, I just don’t know many guys that can make that play. He got turned around a little bit, but he still recovered his length and his ability to jump and control his body. It was a game-changing play.”

It was Bellinger Gold … as in Gold Glove.

Play Ball!

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