After a historic 2017 campaign that resulted in a plethora of broken records and accolades, Cody Bellinger entered his second full season in the Majors with similar expectations.
Bellinger bulked up during the offseason as an effort to help sustain the grueling workload of a 162-game regular-season schedule. But thus far, he has struggled to replicate the same success he enjoyed en route to a unanimous National League Rookie of the Year selection.
In 59 games, the 22-year-old is batting .225/.298/.413 with 10 doubles, three triples, eight home runs and 25 RBI over 238 trips to the plate. That’s good for a 95 OPS+ — five points below league average and nearly 50 points lower from last season.
Bellinger has especially slumped as of late. Dating back to May 17, he is only 5-for-his-last-54 with three extra-base hits and 18 strikeouts.
Despite looking lost in the batter’s box, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the orgnaization hasn’t seriously considered demoting Bellinger to Triple-A Oklahoma City, per Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times:
“We’re not there yet,” Roberts said. “I think whatever we decide for Cody — whether it’s to keep running him out there, giving him days off — entertaining that option, obviously, we’d have to really think through it. It’d have to be in his best interest, in our opinion. We haven’t got to that point yet. But you can see that it’s been tough sledding for him for the first two months of the season.”
Last month, Bellinger revealed that he is “trying to slow everything down” at the plate as a way to get back on track.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented for the Dodgers to eventually demote Bellinger, should that be the route they choose. Last season, the club optioned a struggling Joc Pederson Oklahoma City before he eventually reclaimed a prominent role on the World Series roster. Yasiel Puig experienced a similar fate in 2016.
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