LOS ANGELES _ Cody Bellinger batted second on opening day _ in Oklahoma City, that is. He got three hits in his first game, 10 in his first five games.
He was 21 and in triple-A. The Los Angeles Dodgers had five-time All-Star Adrian Gonzalez at first base. Bellinger envisioned making it to Los Angeles this season, but pretty late in the year.
"Honestly, I thought I was going to be a September call-up," he said last month.
He turned out to be an April call-up, and he emerged as perhaps the Dodgers' most dominant position player this season. Bellinger was honored Monday as the unanimous winner of the National League rookie of the year.
Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager was the unanimous winner last year. The Dodgers have won the award 18 times, more than twice as many as any other franchise. The award since has been renamed in honor of its first winner, Dodgers Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson.
Josh Bell of Pittsburgh and Paul DeJong of St. Louis were runners-up for the award.
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge was the unanimous choice as American League rookie of the year.
Bellinger hit 39 home runs, breaking the NL rookie record set by Wally Berger with the Boston Braves in 1930 and tied by Hall of Famer Frank Robinson with the Cincinnati Reds in 1956. Bellinger batted .267, and his .933 OPS (on-base-percentage-plus-slugging-percentage) ranked among the league's top 10.
The Dodgers won 104 games, the most in the major leagues this year and the most by any Dodgers team in 64 years. But they were 9-11 when they promoted Bellinger on April 25 _ as an outfielder, following injuries to Andre Ethier and Joc Pederson.
Injuries to Gonzalez soon opened a spot for Bellinger at his natural position, first base. The Dodgers went 89-38 in the games Bellinger started, a .701 winning percentage.
By July, the Dodger Stadium fans were serenading Bellinger with "M-V-P" chants, and teammate Enrique Hernandez wanted to know why Bellinger's name was not in the conversation for the league's most valuable player.
"It doesn't make sense to me why they don't talk about it more often," Hernandez said then. "People talk about how the MVP should come from a winning team. We're a winning team, and he's been our X factor."
Bellinger was not one of three finalists for the NL MVP award. None of the three came from a division champion, and two came from teams with losing records: Giancarlo Stanton, who hit a league-high 59 home runs for the Miami Marlins, and Joey Votto, who led the league with a 1.032 OPS for the Cincinnati Reds. The other NL MVP finalist: Paul Goldschmidt of the Arizona Diamondbacks, winners of a wild-card berth.
The Dodgers advanced to the World Series, but Bellinger batted .143, with one home run and 17 strikeouts in 28 at-bats. He set records for most strikeouts in the World Series, and for most strikeouts in the postseason.
He became the first player in World Series history to strike out four times in two different games _ not in the same year, but over a career.
"I was just overaggressive," Bellinger said. "I didn't make adjustments."
After the Dodgers' Game 7 loss to the Houston Astros, Bellinger said he did not want to forget the stinging sensation he felt.
"Hopefully, it sticks with me the next time we're in the playoffs, to remember how I feel right now," he said. "We have such a young, talented group here that there's no doubt in my mind, and in everyone else's mind, that we'll be back."
