Cody Bellinger is a happy and relieved man.
Whoever will try to revive his career in the Chicago Cubs uniform, after a long slump in Los Angeles, could not ask for better in order to become the player he was a few years ago.
Indeed, the announcement by the major league baseball authorities of the abolition of the special defense in 2023 had a beef effect for several hitters, including Bellinger.
According to him, the quality of the show will be greatly improved and it is baseball fans who will ultimately benefit.
Will this return to normal around the diamond be enough for Bellinger to once again become an impact player like in 2019, the year he won the title of most valuable player in the National? This will certainly not harm his cause or that of many hitters who are looking for solutions to hit the ball in a safe place with more regularity.
At the Dodgers, Cody Bellinger had been living a nightmare for some time and the team’s fans had taken a dislike to him. Offensively, he was no longer a shadow of himself and was often relegated to the bottom of the batting lineup. In his defense, he has not been spared injuries of any kind over the past two seasons.
A left-handed hitter accustomed to hitting the ball soaring through the mound, he too often suffered from the special defenses that made his life as an athlete difficult. An almost certain hit almost certainly turned into a routine ground ball to the shortstop, moved behind second base for the occasion.
To evade these now-predictable strategies, a hitter like Bellinger delayed his momentum in order to hit the ball to the opposite field, but with the quality of today’s players, who cover a lot of ground, he came up against the prowess of a Manny Machado. who found a way to pull it off with a powerful and precise relay.
Fortunately for him, he will play less often against Machado and the Padres, but on the other hand he will regularly face Nolan Arenado and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Bellinger, 27, has signed a one-year contract with the Cubs and he will quickly want to prove to the leaders that the organization has made an excellent decision.
