Kenley Jansen shut down the ninth inning striking out the side. With the help of Bellinger’s blast, the Dodgers now find themselves in the exact spot they were last year in a 2–1 series against the Braves.
“It’s just hard to imagine a bigger hit that I can remember, really, just kind of what was at stake,” Roberts said. “And couldn’t be happier for him.”
Cody Bellinger hadn’t homered on a fastball up out of the zone all season. He hadn’t recorded any hit on a ball thrown as fast and as high as the 95.6-mph four-seamer he saw from Braves reliever Luke Jackson in the eighth inning Thursday afternoon.
But on the fourth pitch of the at-bat, with the threat of a 3–0 National League Championship Series looming, all the adjustments Bellinger made to put his trying 2021 regular season behind him manifested in a compact swing that might have saved the Dodgers’ season.
The pitch, exactly the type of high heat Bellinger struggled to catch up to all year while recovering from right shoulder surgery, landed right where Jackson envisioned. Bellinger still connected, adding to his growing postseason highlight reel and sending 51,307 fans screaming as loud as manager Dave Roberts has ever heard Dodger Stadium to erase a three-run deficit in an eventual 6–5 Game 3 win.
“Pure enjoyment,” Bellinger said. “In the moment, it’s loud. You don’t really hear anything, and you don’t really see anything.”
NLCS Game 3 Highlights : LA Dodgers vs Atlanta Braves
“For us to go down 3–0 and hope for a 2004 miracle run is a tall ask,” said manager Dave Roberts, whose stolen base with the Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series helped catalyze Boston’s 3–0 comeback against the Yankees. “And, so, we were dead in the water. You could see it. Luke’s coming in and throwing 97 miles an hour, and you get a squibber, you get AJ riding a base hit up the middle. To get behind in the count and to hit a homer, it just flipped everything.”
The Dodgers trailed 5–2 entering the eighth inning after letting Braves starter Charlie Morton off the ropes early. For the second straight game, Corey Seager delivered a two-run home run two batters into the day. The homer was the 13th of Seager’s postseason career, tying him with Justin Turner for the most in franchise history.
Morton, who had never walked more than four batters in a playoff game until Tuesday, issued four free passes in the first inning alone. But he escaped, stranding the bases loaded in the 34-pitch inning. The Dodgers, who entered 2-for-18 this series with runners in scoring position, left another runner stranded on second an inning later.
“As a unit, it comes down to execution,” said hitting coach Brant Brown. “We really haven’t been the best at minding our eyes and knowing what they’re going to do and leaving spin at the bottom of the zone. But it’s something that the guys, they’re going to have to make adjustments.”
Morton went on to provide five innings. Despite the early traffic, he lasted 1 1/3 innings longer than Dodger starter Walker Buehler.
