Cody Bellinger flashed a smile that only widened as he reached home plate.
The nine-year veteran was eminently aware that he had never hit three home runs in a game before, and earlier Friday night, Chicago Cubs right fielder Kyle Tucker robbed what would have been Bellinger’s third homer of the evening.
But in the eighth inning of the Yankees’ 11-0 win in the Bronx, Bellinger drilled another ball beyond the right-field wall — and this one wasn’t coming back.
“I knew I didn’t have one,” Bellinger said, referring to a three-homer game. “The boys were giving me a hard time after he robbed it. [Aaron Boone] was giving me a hard time. My next at-bat, not trying to do too much, and I’m glad the fan caught it before [center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong] could grab it.”
Bellinger’s long-awaited first three-homer game fueled the Yankees’ series-opening win and backed a gem by starter Carlos Rodón.
Facing the Cubs for the first time since they traded him to the Yankees last offseason, Bellinger homered against right-hander Chris Flexen in the third inning and left-hander Caleb Thielbar in the fifth.
Tucker’s leaping catch at the wall in the seventh denied Bellinger’s first attempt at a third homer, but Bellinger got another chance in the eighth.
He took advantage by sending a 380-foot drive against lefty Jordan Wicks to right-center, and a young fan in the front row caught the ball just before a leaping Crow-Armstrong could get to it.
Bellinger said he met the fan afterward and got the ball back.
“He should have had four,” Aaron Judge said. “That was an impressive night out of him. He was locked in from the very beginning. Great at-bat after great at-bat. It didn’t matter who they were bringing in to face him.”
Following his final homer, Bellinger earned a curtain call from a crowd of 46,327.
“He was a little reluctant,” Boone said. “But then the “BEL-LIN-GER” over the dugout got pretty loud.”
Said Bellinger, “Once they kind of nudged me, that was a cool moment.”
The Yankees acquired Bellinger from the Cubs in December, hoping the outfielder/first baseman would improve their defense and pick up some of the offensive production vacated by Juan Soto’s departure to the Mets.
The Cubs, meanwhile, sought payroll relief and had a glut of outfielders following their offseason acquisition of Tucker.
But Bellinger had no hard feelings for his former team, with whom he spent the previous two seasons. More than four hours before Friday’s game, Bellinger greeted many of his former teammates on the field as they took early batting practice.
“No revenge,” Bellinger said. “Ultimately, it was fun to be out there. I saw a bunch of guys I hadn’t seen in a while and I shared a bunch of good memories with them.”
Friday’s performance marked the 18th multi-homer game of Bellinger’s career and his first as a Yankee. He extended his hitting streak to 16 games, which set a new career high.
Bellinger is hitting .341 with eight homers and 22 RBI in 34 games since the start of June.
“He’s just a player that’s focused, prepared, ready to go every single night,” Judge said. “It doesn’t matter if they have him playing left field, center field, first base, batting second, third, fourth, wherever. He’s just a guy that’s always prepared, always focused, so that’s pretty cool to see.”
Bellinger followed Judge (on March 29) and Jasson Domínguez (on May 9) as Yankees to hit three homers in a game this season. It’s the first time in franchise history that the Yankees have gotten three three-homer games in a season.
The latest came in support of Rodón, who struck out eight against four hits and a walk over eight innings.
Boone visited the mound after Rodón allowed a two-out single to Nico Hoerner in the eighth, putting runners at the corners, but the manager let the left-hander face one more batter, earning a rapturous round of applause from the near-capacity crowd.
On his 109th pitch, Rodón got Tucker to line out to a diving Judge. Judge also robbed Crow-Armstrong of a home run and took away a Dansby Swanson single with a dive in a span of three pitches in the fourth inning.
Rodón shut down a Cubs offense that entered Friday averaging an MLB-best 5.41 runs per game. The dominant outing came hours after he was named an All-Star, replacing teammate Max Fried, who is set to pitch Saturday for the Yankees and opted against appearing in next week’s exhibition in Atlanta.
Rodón wants to see Bellinger added to the American League roster, too.
“He’s making his push to be an All-Star,” Rodón said. “In my book, he is.”
Since snapping a six-game losing streak with a win last weekend at Citi Field — a game in which Bellinger turned a shoestring catch into a rally-killing double play — the Yankees have won five in a row.
“It feels like summertime now in the Bronx, and it’s Friday night and the Cubs are in town,” Boone said. “There’s a buzz in the ballpark, and I think guys can feel that.”