LOS ANGELES_He is Babe Ruth. Well, not really, but he wears Babe Ruth's number.
He is Andre the Giant. OK, not exactly, but he is a former Virginia Beach city middle school wrestling champion.
Some folks call him CT3, but Los Angeles already has a CP3, so that doesn't work either.
For now, let's just settle on calling him Chris Taylor, which is appropriate for a Dodgers team that thrives on ordinary names doing extraordinary things.
Seriously, where do the Dodgers find these guys?
On a sunny late Saturday afternoon, with two of the most famous baseball teams in the world dueling at Dodger Stadium, it was a little anonymous bearded dude who stole the show.
The Dodgers shut out the Chicago Cubs for a second consecutive game, heaping a 5-0 victory atop Friday's 4-0 victory while holding the defending World Series champions to five hits in two days, but all I could see was the Dodgers' makeshift center fielder chasing and hammering and competing.
We knew the Dodgers had pitching. We had no idea they had Chris Taylor.
The 26-year-old role player who batted .207 in about a month of games last season didn't show up this year until he was summoned from triple-A Oklahoma City to replace injured Logan Forsythe on April 19.
What he's done in 34 games since then was epitomized in one brilliant game Saturday, baseball's highest payroll once again winning with a hidden curiosity.
"He's what we're about," manager Dave Roberts said.
Fourth inning, two out, scoreless game, Taylor cuts off a line drive by the Cubs' Ian Happ and fires the ball to second base, where Corey Seager holds the tag long enough for Happ to take his foot off the bag.
Happ is out, inning is over, Cubs momentum is stalled, and get this: Taylor was playing just his fourth career game in center field after taking over the position early this week.
"That's no easy chore, and he's done a really good job," said recently reborn teammate Chase Utley.
Fifth inning, none out, Brandon McCarthy on first base after a walk, Taylor swings at a first-pitch slider from the Cubs' John Lackey and the ball sails toward the left-field corner.
Home run, Dodgers lead 3-0, Cubs deflated again, and get this: It was Taylor's sixth homer in 101 at-bats this season after hitting just one in 291 previous career at-bats.
"Taking on a new position, moving around the order, sporadic playing time until recently, delivering big hits, quality at-bats, every time he steps in the box, that 'compete' is contagious," Roberts said.
Contagious to everyone, it seems, except Taylor, who quietly smiled and shrugged.
"I'm just happy to be here on the team," he said. "I don't care where I am, I just want to be on the field."
Oh, he's staying on the field, all right. Even when Joc Pederson's concussion protocol is ended next week, the Dodgers are going to need to somehow keep Taylor on the field, seeing as he is their leading active hitter with a .327average and a .424 on-base percentage. Not to mention, he is fourth in homers and fifth with 19 RBIs, and he's done it all while playing four different positions. Besides Saturday's throw, earlier this week he had a diving catch in center, and has played well elsewhere.
How can the Dodgers bench him, even if it means having him share time with Pederson, who has one homer since opening day?
"He'll play, he'll play," said Roberts. "I'll find him at-bats. He's earned it."
Taylor is a perfect example of the wonderfully offbeat way in which Dodger management has built this team into perennial contenders. They make quiet trades while nobody is watching. They plug in quiet players that nobody has ever heard of. Those players succeed, in either one big moment or many big moments, beyond everyone's expectations.
Andrew Toles, Josh Fields, Adam Liberatore, Charlie Culberson ... meet the new guy.
Taylor has played for seven different minor-league teams since being a fifth-round pick by the Seattle Mariners in 2012 out of the University of Virginia. He was brought here in middle of last summer in a trade for Zach Lee, a failed former No. 1 overall pick.
Then, while the Dodgers were in the playoffs last October, Taylor was in Arizona and Los Angeles, changing his swing per Dodgers orders, adding a Justin-Turner like leg kick, this ground-ball sprinter now hitting long flies.
"It's a huge part," Taylor said of the swing change. "It's also my approach, thinking of getting the ball in the air."
One result is, the ball is leaving the yard. Another result is, he recently received a free meal while eating a post-game dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.
"I hope I didn't get anybody in trouble for saying that," Taylor said with a smile. "That's the first time that happened. Usually I just blend in."
He's being noticed now for more than just his "Copperhead Road" song by Steve Earle, an outlaw country song from 1988. He's being noticed for more than just wearing No. 3, which he didn't pick, it was given to him when he arrive because his usual No. 1 belonged to Pee Wee Reese.
Chris Taylor is best known simply as being an old-fashioned ballplayer on a team full of them. And for now, that's enough.
