After being released as a non-tender by the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cody Bellinger, 28, has been resurrected by the Chicago Cubs, and his momentum is building toward the end of the season. It’s starting to make you wonder why he struggled for three years with his former team.

Bellinger went 2-for-5 with a home run, his 23rd of the season, and three RBIs in the Cubs’ 15-7 win over the Cincinnati Reds on April 4. His three home runs in his last four games have propelled the Cubs into the second wild-card spot in the National League (NL).

To date, Bellinger is batting .364 (130-for-406) with 23 home runs, 84 RBI, 19 doubles, 31 walks, 71 strikeouts, a .552 on-base percentage and a .916 OPS in 106 games this season. His on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS are his best numbers since his 2019 NL MVP campaign.

Bellinger’s resurgence has been vocalized by his agent, Scott Boras. “Bellinger was, quite simply, sick with the Dodgers,” Boras told USA Today Sports on March 28. After undergoing shoulder surgery, the Dodgers asked him to play at a 35 percent strength deficit. Due to COVID-19, he was unable to seek professional medical attention.”

Bellinger had right shoulder surgery in November 2020. He dislocated the shoulder during a forearm-to-forearm celebration with Kike Hernandez after hitting the game-winning home run in Game 7 of that year’s NL Championship Series. He rehabbed in the offseason and played in the April opener, but he wasn’t at full strength, Boras said.

“Bellinger had no strength in his shoulder,” Boras said. I don’t understand how his OPS went from .900 to .500 without the impact of the injury.” After posting a career OPS of .911 over the four years between his 2017 debut and 2020, Bellinger plummeted to a .542 OPS in 2021. “When he became a free agent, he said, ‘I want to go to the team that knows me best, and I want to go to a place where people understand me,'” Boras added. The implication was that no one on the Dodgers understood him.

Ten months after his departure from the Dodgers, the Dodgers aren’t taking the revelations lying down. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying of Boras’ comments, “I don’t think we can go down to that level, but I think he’s comfortable saying it. We weren’t surprised,” he said.

Boras then went on the defensive. “The Dodgers didn’t do anything wrong to play Bellinger in 2021. He wasn’t forced to play when he wasn’t feeling well. “Bellinger wanted to play, and the Dodgers wanted him to play, even though he was coming off of surgery, and he wasn’t strong enough to do so,” Boras said. There’s no fault on the Dodgers’ part,” he said, trying to defuse the controversy.온라인카지노

But the Dodgers are still pretty upset. “What’s interesting is that there’s no mention of the Boras Institute’s role at all,” Friedman said. I’ll leave it at that,” Friedman said. The Boras Sports Training Institute (BSTI), based in Los Angeles, California, is known for rehabilitating athletes represented by the Boras agency. Friedman hinted that there were issues with Bellinger’s rehabilitation there, but avoided specifics. He also did not respond to Boras’ correction.

Boras’ untimely revelations have all but eliminated any chance of Bellinger, who is a free agent after the season, returning to the Dodgers, with USA Today Sports reporting on Thursday that “Bellinger’s asking price will likely top $200 million and could even reach $300 million or more. The most aggressive suitors are expected to be the Cubs, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees.