Los Angeles Dodgers: Cody Bellinger is unstoppable again

After hitting his first grand slam of the season Tuesday night, it began to look as if the Los Angeles Dodgers had the 2017 version of Cody Bellinger back in their corner.

Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger has so far begun the 2019 season with feats of strength. It’ a small sample size, but he’ been getting on-base at an incredible rate and has been hitting home runs left and right in a fashion similar to his 2017 campaign.

Bellinger entered Thursday with a seven-game hitting streak and five home runs to go along with 13 RBI’s. It looks as if he’s ready to improve on his 2018 campaign and lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to the playoffs again.

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Last season he hit .260 with 25 home runs and 74 RBI’s while playing in 162 games. He’s already one-fifth of the way to reaching that home run total and might even be able to surpass his rookie totals and have his first season of 40 home runs and 100 RBI’s.

On average, when you see a hitter drive in 20 runs in a month, that would equate to more than 100 for the season. Bellinger is on a pace for well more than 20, over the span of just six days he drove in 14.

He’s having a very similar opening stretch to the one that Trevor Story had a few years back. Story began the 2016 season by hitting seven home runs over the first six games of his career. He went on to finish with 27 home runs and 72 RBI’s in only 97 games and the rest was history.

If Bellinger has a season that resembles either of their rookie campaigns, he could be on track for a possible MVP. In 2017, he finished ninth in N.L. MVP voting, having put up his stellar numbers in only 132 games.

Considering that he’s played in 162 games last year, it’s not out of the question for him to play another full season this time around. If he can put up 2017 numbers while playing 150 or more games, it will really be a season for the record books.

One surprising detail about his season so far is that all seven games were at home. Last year his OPS at home was .707 while it was .915 on the road. He had a pretty big disadvantage at home in 2018 but if he plays as well at home this year, it will be a huge improvement for him.

If he can keep up this opening week momentum, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Bellinger to finish the season hitting .300 with at least 44 home runs and 110 RBI’s.