Cubs cleanup hitter Cody Bellinger often gets asked if this is the best he has felt at the plate since his 2019 MVP season. It’s for good reason, and he’s not downplaying how locked in he is.
“I feel really good,” Bellinger said. “It’s just the understanding of my body and strength and knowing what I need to do every day.”
With his go-ahead two-run single in the sixth inning Saturday, Bellinger already has 19 RBI this month.
Bellinger’s slugging percentage actually dropped to .771 in July despite getting two hits. As it stands, that’s his highest slugging percentage in a month since April 2019, when he slugged .843 and drove in 29 runs.
Two singles and an RBI groundout showed how Bellinger’s ability to hit for average and contact has blossomed since he first emerged as a traditional slugger with an uppercut swing.
“His bat-to-ball skills are pretty elite,” manager David Ross said. “There’s a real skill and an art to those guys who can put the ball in play, hit the ball the other way and protect with two strikes. It makes good things happen.”
Leiter Jr. reflects on escape
The furor over umpire Ron Kulpa’s generous strike call on a 3-1 pitch to Cardinals outfielder Alec Burleson on Friday overshadowed how Mark Leiter Jr.’s escape from a bases-loaded jam was also a demonstration of why he has been an effective late-inning relief option.
Like any pitcher worth his salt, Leiter felt he nicked the outside edge on his 3-0 sinker. He praised catcher Miguel Amaya for keeping his mitt on the same sight line as the previous pitch to the umpire, obscuring that his 3-1 cutter didn’t dart as far back to the zone.
With an irritated Burleson now worried about a wide zone, Leiter followed with a sinker that started out in the same tunnel of the last pitch that had just earned a strike call. Late movement pushed it even farther out and induced a defensive swing for an easy double-play ball.
“If you set up pitches, you have a better chance,” Leiter said.
“Maybe he’s looking for that [cutter] that’s coming back, and now he has to protect and can expand [the zone]. That’s part of the game that’s always been here and needs to stay. Pitchability is the biggest factor in baseball.”
Leiter, 32, sits in the low-90s, but with pitchability, movement and sequencing, he boasts a career-best 31.5 strikeout rate in a high-leverage role with a 3.29 ERA after another scoreless inning Saturday.
A shaky opener
A first-pitch home run from Lars Nootbaar off Michael Fulmer draws attention, but the real benefit of the opener strategy was supposed to be prodding the Cardinals to stack lefty bats at the top of the order against left-hander Drew Smyly.
But the left-handed Nootbaar had two hits off Smyly, and lefty slugger Nolan Gorman hit a 445-foot homer as Smyly was tagged for five runs in 3⅔ innings.
“You try to plan some of these things out early that make sense numbers-wise,” Ross said. “Then you’ve got to go play a game, and then the first pitch of the game gets hit out of the ballpark by a lefty.”
Jameson Taillon will make a traditional start Sunday.
