Cody Bellinger’s scorching spring encouraging for future

It happens every year. There’s a young prospect who has a great spring training, yet has zero chance of making the ballclub. Yasiel Puig was that guy a few years ago (kinda). This year, it’s Cody Bellinger.

	Dodgers			Brewers
	1:05 p.m.			Maryvale, Ariz.
LF	Crawford		3B	Walsh
2B	Utley		C	Lucroy
C	Grandal		LF	Braun
3B	Guerrero		RF	Santiago
CF	Thompson		1B	Middlebrooks
1B	Segedin		CF	Liriano
SS	Culberson		2B	Perez
RF	Noel		SS	Rivera
P	Kazmir (L)		P	Nelson (R)

	Padres			Dodgers
	1:05 p.m.			Glendale, Ariz.
CF	Jay		2B	Kendrick
2B	Spangenberg		RF	Puig
RF	Kemp		3B	Turner
1B	Myers		1B	Bellinger
3B	Solarte		SS	Hernandez
C	Norris		C	Ellis
SS	Ramirez		CF	Pederson
LF	Upton		LF	Brown
P	Erlin (L)		P	Bolsinger (R)

While I ranked him my No. 5 prospect, even I didn’t think he’d hit as well as he has this spring.

• 21 plate appearances
• 10 hits
• 2 doubles
• 1 home run
• 6 walks
• 4 strikeouts

While the contact and pop is nice, what’s more impressive is the fact he has walked more times than he has struck out.

He’s starting at first base for the injured Scott Van Slyke (hip flexor; it’s minor) and the absent Adrian Gonzalez (World Baseball Classic final qualifier today).

Here’s the home run he hit off Randall Delgado on Friday.

It was a legitimate blast to left-center field off a decent MLB pitcher. That’s encouraging. He’s really quiet before the pitch is delivered and lets the ball travel into the strike zone. His bat is really quick and he has some natural loft to his swing.

Bellinger’s power is to the pull side, but it’s really encouraging to see him hitting the ball with authority the other way at such a young age (20). It’s an extremely small sample size and he needs to show it in-game, but there’s no doubt he has been impressive this spring. He is the Dodgers’ first baseman of the future.

Can it be real baseball yet?