After strong showing at Freeway Series, Dodgers carry hot bats into opening day
DENVER — Spring training is spring training, meaning the results are irrelevant whether they’re recorded at Camelback Ranch or Dodger Stadium, but the Freeway Series served as a reminder: The 2021 Dodgers’ firepower may be unmatched.
In their return to California, the Dodgers clubbed four home runs in each of their three games against the Angels — the first at Angel Stadium before two at Chavez Ravine. After scoring the most runs and belting a league-leading 118 home runs in the truncated 60-game 2020 season, they made the supposed deadened ball Major League Baseball will use look very much alive.
All 12 home runs were hit by players projected to play regularly once the season starts Thursday. Max Muncy homered twice Sunday. Mookie Betts homered twice Tuesday. Chris Taylor, Will Smith, and Corey Seager each homered off Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani on Monday before Ohtani exited with a blister issue.
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Gavin Lux, a left-handed hitter, cracked a home run to the opposite field off a left-handed pitcher Sunday at Angel Stadium. He finished the exhibition slate with a .314 batting average, solidifying his role as the team’s second baseman after a disappointing 2020. The former top prospect and 2019 Baseball America minor league player of the year will hit eighth, ahead of the pitcher, most nights.
“His work has been consistent and the results have shown that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “and I don’t see it changing throughout the season.”
Lux’s double play partner, Corey Seager, finished the exhibition slate the way he finished the postseason last October, on a torrid pace. The shortstop batted .346 with eight home runs and 1.251 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 52 at-bats. Betts is the team’s best all-around player, but Seager, in a contract year, has proven to be the Dodgers’ best hitter and become a trendy pick to win National League MVP.
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“I just think the thing that it kind of goes back to is health,” Roberts said. “He feels good. his body is feeling right and the results are certainly there.”
The most significant development for the Dodgers in the Freeway Series, however, was Cody Bellinger’s continued progression. The center fielder went 0 for 1 with two walks before hitting a home run in each of the next two games. He went just 5 for 28 with 11 strikeouts after making his spring debut March 16, but Roberts said he appeared more comfortable with each game in his return from arthroscopic labrum surgery on his right shoulder in November.
“I think he’s seeing the ball well,” Roberts said. “I like the way he’s getting off his A swing a lot.”
Cody Bellinger was much more open with his front foot, and his bat was angled farther down than last season, when he struggled after his 2019 MVP campaign.
Bellinger showed the organization enough improvement in the two weeks to move him back into the cleanup spot to start the season, pushing Muncy to fifth or sixth in the order.
Last year, Bellinger was dropped to sixth in the lineup in mid-September after significant struggles. He finished the 60-game regular season batting .239 with 12 home runs and 113 OPS+, a substantial dropoff from his MVP season in 2019. This year, he unveiled a more open batting stance, like the one he used as a rookie in 2017, in hopes of rebounding.
That will be put to the test starting Thursday in Denver against the Colorado Rockies. Spring results, irrelevant in the moment, will be long forgotten by first pitch. But history suggests the Dodgers’ offense will thrive in the thin Rocky Mountain air and everywhere else.
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