Major League Baseball

Cody Bellinger comes through in Dodgers' NLCS Game 3 rally vs. the Braves

Published Oct. 20, 2021 1:18 a.m. ET

By Pedro Moura
FOX Sports MLB Writer

LOS ANGELES — As it soared toward him, Cody Bellinger tracked Luke Jackson’s pitch with his eyes.

As they so often do, his eyes assured him he could connect with it. But this time, he actually could. And this time, Bellinger didn’t put all of himself into his swing. He did just enough.

He swatted the pitch 399 feet to right field and tied Game 3 of the National League Championship Series with a most improbable three-run home run. He set off for the basepath in a giddy trance.

"You don't really hear anything," Bellinger said afterward. "You don't really see anything."

Well, because he missed it: Dodger Stadium was shaking, his teammates were pounding the dugout fence, and fans were shrieking. Bellinger was less trotting around the bases and more gallivanting, pausing to gesture toward his teammates and greet his base coaches. And the Dodgers were, as one of their players later put it, resurrected.

It was funny. Because they survived, because they went on to beat the Atlanta Braves 6-5, they were all willing to acknowledge that it did not look like they would.

"We were dead in the water," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "You could see it."

Everyone could. It’d been three years since the Dodgers were confronted with such a lethal postseason blow for literal hours. This was a slower burn than their 2019 defeat.

After a 2 p.m. start Tuesday, the sun was setting at Dodger Stadium and setting on the reigning champions’ season. They were five outs away from a 3-0 series deficit when Bellinger struck. Nearly three hours had passed since the Dodgers’ previous chance with a runner in scoring position.

And for once, Walker Buehler failed to come through when the Dodgers were in desperate need. He obtained only 11 outs in the shortest postseason start of his career, flinging his hat and glove to the dugout ground as he exited. His teammates made up for it — eventually.

Of course, the Dodgers came back from a 3-1 deficit in the same round against these same Braves one year ago. Their one early win last year, also in Game 3, was much smoother than Tuesday’s comeback. They scored 11 runs in that first inning, tacked on four more over the next two frames and coasted to a sizable victory.

It looked like they might do the same Tuesday, when they began with the right blend of patience and aggressiveness. Mookie Betts watched the first five pitches Charlie Morton threw and earned a walk. Corey Seager then swung at three of Morton’s four offerings. He walloped the third, a curveball, 444 feet for a two-run home run, the longest hit off of Morton’s curveball since Statcast began tracking distances in 2015. With two outs in the first, the Dodgers loaded the bases on walks, but they failed to convert the chance. Chris Taylor lined out.

From there, Morton found his form, or something approximating it. He was still wild, issuing six walks, but he induced enough soft contact to survive. Betts singled and stole second in the second inning, but NL batting champion Trea Turner, needing a single to score him, popped out. The Dodgers didn’t have another chance with a runner in scoring position until the eighth inning, when Will Smith and AJ Pollock strung together singles. That brought Bellinger to the plate with two men on and one out.

He let by a low breaking ball to begin. Jackson’s next pitch was a well-placed slider at the bottom of the zone. Bellinger tried to golf it 500 feet, dropping to a knee during the misguided swing. Jackson next fired a fastball down the middle, and Bellinger was late to it. Then came the fastball up high, way high, around Bellinger’s armpits. Bellinger anticipated it there and calibrated his swing accordingly. Gone was the earlier uppercut. In its stead was a singles swing that happened to send the ball to the bleachers.

"He was really just trying to put the bat on the ball," Dodgers hitting coach Brant Brown said. "That’s something we’ve talked about all year: You don’t have to slug. You have to get to it first."

And before that, Bellinger had to change his swing so that he could get to it. When the Dodgers returned from a series in St. Louis six weeks ago, Bellinger finally submitted to the coaches’ suggestions. Bothered by shoulder, hip, rib and hamstring injuries, the former MVP was hitting .158. Rival pitchers had better OPSes than his.

"He knew he had to do something," Brown said. "It's just something that changes his intent right out of the get-go, allows him to have a little shorter swing and allows him to do things like he did today."

He kept his bat upright and his body more compact. He started choking up on his bat, especially with two strikes. And he curtailed his chases of breaking balls below the zone. It’s not as if he became a sudden star from that moment on — there have still been plenty of ugly swings — but he has been a threat, at least.

Roberts argued that Bellinger would not have made the in-the-moment adjustment he made Tuesday in years past, when his regular seasons were either exceptional or good enough that he continued to believe he could hit a home run at any moment. But this time, it was the very sacrifice of a homer that enabled him to homer. Bellinger aimed for contact, and his athleticism took over.

"I can be certain that the last thing he was thinking about," Roberts said, "was hitting a homer."

When asked in recent weeks, Bellinger has repeatedly described himself as healthy, even 100 percent healthy when sufficiently prodded. But he is not, as evidenced by Brown's noting Tuesday that Bellinger has reaped the benefits of the change in his stance, "despite where he’s at physically."

Clearly, he is healthy enough to be a threat. Jackson’s fastball was the highest pitch Bellinger had hit for a home run since his 11th major-league game back in May 2017. Only four higher pitches were hit for homers across the majors in 2021. Bellinger is still capable of as much as anyone playing the game today.

For the Dodgers, that’s a good sign. But they need more. Betts, Seager and Smith alone cannot carry an offense. Both Turners, Trea and Justin, have been nonfactors in this NLCS, too often chasing, too often popping balls up.

"We really haven’t been the best at minding our eyes and knowing what they’re gonna do," Brown said. "The guys are gonna have to make adjustments. You either live or you die."

On Tuesday, the Dodgers lived. They ensured their survival for at least 50 or so hours. But to endure longer, to allow Buehler to redeem himself with another start, they can’t go through six-inning stretches like the middle of Tuesday’s affair.

They’re still trailing in this series, after all.

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He most recently covered the Dodgers for three seasons for The Athletic. Previously, he spent five years covering the Angels and Dodgers for the Orange County Register and L.A. Times. More previously, he covered his alma mater, USC, for ESPNLosAngeles.com. The son of Brazilian immigrants, he grew up in the Southern California suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @pedromoura.