Cody Bellinger is having a heck of a bounce-back season. After three lousy years in a row, Bellinger is looking more like the guy who won the NL MVP award in 2019. In 76 games with the Cubs this season, he’s hitting .317 with a .912 OPS—that’s 258 points higher than the .654 OPS he posted last year.
Bellinger kept his hot streak going in Tuesday night’s game against the Reds, picking up three hits as Chicago erupted for 20 runs. He contributed to the offensive onslaught with a towering two-run homer in the second inning when Ben Lively hung a curveball right in his wheelhouse.
Get out your hard hats! pic.twitter.com/7XNrJqnZ6m
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 2, 2023
Statcast tracked Bellinger’s homer at 105.9 mph off the bat, but for less scientific evidence of how hard it was hit, just check out the damage it did to the Wrigley Field video board.
Cody Bellinger left his mark on the Wrigley Field scoreboard with his home run pic.twitter.com/S72uWtPD7a
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) August 2, 2023
Now, Bellinger didn’t really do any serious damage to the scoreboard. It was operating normally by the next inning. That makes sense. The screen is too close to the field to be fragile enough that it can be taken out of commission by a home run ball. Still, it had to have feel good for Bellinger to leave physical evidence of how he crushed that ball. It’s like the 21st-century version of Roy Hobbs breaking the clock at Wrigley.
