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Dodgers rookie Cody Bellinger already has a cool place in MLB history

mike oz

If it weren’t for Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger might be the biggest story in this week’s Major League Baseball rookie class. Judge has the Triple Crown stats on lock. He’s setting Statcast records and getting all the fanfare that comes with being baseball’s breakout star while playing for its most famous team.

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But Bellinger has one thing that Judge doesn’t — a pretty awesome place in MLB history that not even Judge can match.

Tuesday night, in the Dodgers’ 7-5 win over the Cleveland Indians, Bellinger hit two more homers, giving him 17 for the season. One broke a tie in the eighth inning, another was a ninth-inning nail in the coffin that made the score 7-2. With that, Belling secured this piece of the MLB record books:

Cody Bellinger has made home-run history in his first 45 games. (AP)
Cody Bellinger has made home-run history in his first 45 games. (AP)

Four multi-homer games already?! It’s pretty crazy, when you consider some thought Bellinger was going to be a temporary call-up for the Dodgers in late April. Since then, the 21-year-old outfielder has driven in 39 runs, scored 32 and is slashing .261/.335/.630.

That doesn’t quite compare with Judge’s line: .343/.450/.718 with 22 homers and 49 RBIs. But it doesn’t take anything away from Bellinger, either. His impact on the Dodgers has been quite obvious. Just consider this pair of factoids:

And the Dodgers, after their win Tuesday night, have won five in a row and are back in a first-place tie with the Colorado Rockies. They’re probably not there without Bellinger.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!