Best Games Of 2018 Season: No. 4, Cody Bellinger Makes Diving Catch & Hits Walk-Off Single In NLCS

As the wait for the 2020 Major League Baseball season continues, every game from 2018 and 2019 are available to stream for free on MLB.TV. Thus, DodgerBlue.com ranked the best Los Angeles Dodgers games from each of the two seasons, beginning with 2018.

The list continues with No. 5 from two years ago, when Cody Bellinger played a key role for the Dodgers in their walk-off win over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. Bellinger’s heroics helped the Dodgers avoid falling into a 3-1 series deficit.

Making the end result all the more improbable was Bellinger did not enter the game until the sixth inning as a pinch-hitter. He was 1-for-21 up to that point in the postseason and had been relegated to a platoon.

Well before Bellinger put his imprint on the game, the Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning behind Brian Dozier’s base hit. Domingo Santana’s RBI double in the fifth tied the game and it remained deadlocked into extra innings.

Kenley Jansen was on the mound to start the 10th, and faced Lorenzo Cain to lead off the inning. Cain hit a sinking line drive into the right-center field gap that Bellinger caught by breaking into a dead sprint to his right and going into a diving catch.

Bellinger’s head-first grab was a further display of his instincts and athleticism. He’d not yet spent significant time in right field during his young career with the Dodgers, but did already have some comfort level at the position.

“I knew I had a shot at it. I played right field in Minor Leagues a lot before I started playing center field,” Bellinger said after Game 4. “I haven’t been there much lately. But it’s kind of like riding a bike. I saw it hanging up there, and ran as fast as I could and dove for it.”

Three innings after his electrifying catch, Bellinger was in position to send the Dodgers home with a walk-off win. Manny Machado singled with one out in the 13th inning and moved into scoring position on a wild pitch with two outs.

“Honestly, I was surprised that they were throwing me, I thought they would pitch around me and get me to swing,” Bellinger would later say. “Once I saw they were attacking me, it was just kind of grind mode and do what you can to put the ball in play and try to end this game.”

He worked the count full before pulling the seventh pitch he saw into right field for a walk-off single and NLCS-tying win. “It’s probably a feeling you won’t forget, seeing your guys chase after you,” Bellinger said.

The Dodgers went on to eliminate the Brewers in seven games, with Bellinger earning NLCS MVP honors.