Column: Cody Bellinger revives the Dodgers’ championship hopes with two swings
When Cody Bellinger reached second base, he looked up into the Minute Maid Park ceiling and screamed, his hallelujahs spiraling skyward for a battling team, a thankful city, and a renewed World Series.
“A super sigh of relief,” he said.
The Dodgers are back. A title is within reach. Two wins away, three games to get it done, and if 22-year-old kid Bellinger can break out of an 0-for-13 World Series hitless streak with the game’s two biggest hits with his team’s baseball life on the line, doesn’t anything seem possible?
“It’s a beautiful game,” Bellinger said, and amen to that.
On a Saturday night that stunned the swaggering Houston Astros, Bellinger finished what Alex Wood brilliantly started, and together they led Dodgers to a giant 6-2 victory over the Astros in Game 4 of the World Series, knotting the series at two games apiece.
How big? Just listen to the most understated of Dodgers breaking out of his shell.
“Just a huge win for us,” Chris Taylor said. “The difference between being down 3-1 and 2-2 is everything. Now we’ve got a three-game series, and we’ve got our guy on the mound tomorrow, so we’re right where we want to be.”
That place is with ace Clayton Kershaw pitching Sunday against the Astros’ Dallas Keuchel in Game 5, a perfect moment to complete Kershaw’s postseason renaissance. Kershaw is so ready, after finishing the handshake line Saturday, with the field emptying, he jogged to the mound and got into his stretch position as if preparing to pitch that instant.
“I promise you we’ll be ready to go win one game tomorrow,” manager Dave Roberts said.
Also, this win ensures that not only will the series go back to Los Angeles, but that there will be a Game 6 at Dodger Stadium on Halloween, and won’t that be madness?
“Taking one here to make sure we go back to L.A. is huge,” Bellinger said.
Finally, this was the Astros’ first postseason loss in eight games at Minute Maid Park, and it has left them looking extremely mortal, especially a bullpen that has become the pain that everyone predicted.
“I like where we’re at,” Roberts said. “There’s been so many emotional swings, and we’re dead even right now and we’ve got our ace going tomorrow. So I know that in our clubhouse, we feel good.”
The win included redemption for the Dodgers bullpen, which completed a two-hitter, even if one of those hits was a ninth-inning homer by Alex Bregman off Kenley Jansen. The win also included a big sacrifice fly by Austin Barnes followed by a second World Series home run by Joc Pederson to finish it.
“We’ve got to get 27 outs … It seems like right now for some of these guys it’s one pitch and things unravel a little bit,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said of a bullpen that gave up five runs in the ninth inning.
Heck, there was even a Dodgers comeback involved, as the Astros took the lead in the sixth inning on George Springer’s second home run of the series against Wood, who was pitching a no-hitter at the time, the longest in Dodgers franchise postseason history.
But then Bellinger, who was 0 for 13 with eight strikeouts in the series, led off the seventh against Astros starter Charlie Morton with a double into left-center field. Bellinger screamed to the heavens, asked for the ball as a souvenir, and the party was just getting started.
“We’ve been doing it all year,” Bellinger said. “We’re a super resilient team.”
Logan Forsythe, one of the sturdiest of Dodgers who entered batting .304 in the postseason, knocked him in with a single to left, only the Dodgers’ second hit in 18 at-bats with runners in scoring position in the Series, and the game was tied.
“The momentum shifts,” Forsythe said. “Let’s bring in the guys and shut it down.”
With the score still tied 1-all in the ninth, against Astros closer Ken Giles, the guys showed up indeed. Corey Seager singled, Justin Turner walked, and Bellinger broke the tie by hitting another double to left-center to score Seager, leading to a late flow of Dodgers runs that ended with Pederson’s blast.
This time, instead of looking up, Bellinger stared into the Dodgers dugout and clapped his hands five times as if finally pounding away the pain of the last two losses and reminding everyone that the offense had righted itself and the team seems prepared to take the final two steps toward a title.
“Today I tried to make an effort of not doing too much, and when you do that you get two hits sometimes,” Bellinger said. “It’s a crazy game.”
Yeah, the kid is back, and he could be getting crazy hot again.
“Every day you seem him grow a little bit more,” Wood said of his formerly struggling teammate. “To see him break through out there was awesome. Everybody has had the same message for him. ‘We believe in you, you’re our guy, you’re special.’”
So is Wood, who, making only the second postseason start of his career, struggled with his control but not with his stuff, holding the Astros hitless until Springer’s drive broke the scoreless deadlock with two outs in the sixth, at which point Wood was quickly removed.
There have been only two World Series no-hit bids longer than Wood’s since Don Larsen’s perfect game in 1956, and the last one was Jerry Koosman in 1969.
“Woody was unbelievable tonight,” Forsythe said. “We don’t win that game without Woody.”
If they don’t win this game, well … they won it. They stayed strong early, broke through late, owned it in the end, and now the World Series feels different for them, brighter, louder, hallelujahs for everyone.
The Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2017 World Series
Get more of Bill Plaschke’s work and follow him on Twitter @BillPlaschke
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