Dodgers' 2019 MVP outfielder awes Isotopes fans during rehab stint

May 22—ALBUQUERQUE — It wasn't quite the buzz of a Kirk Gibson plate appearance at the old Sports Stadium or a Darryl Strawberry outfield start in the red and mustard yellow of the Albuquerque Dukes, and it certainly wasn't the circus of a Manny Ramirez post-steroids suspension in an Isotopes uniform.

What Cody Bellinger's rehab appearance Friday night was, however, was a welcome gift to a state deprived of professional baseball since the late summer of 2019.

The most valuable player of the National League that year with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Bellinger is one of Major League Baseball's brightest stars. In the offseason he inked a $16.1 million deal to keep him in the heart of the defending World Series champions' lineup.

The Dodgers had been targeting this weekend for Bellinger's return to action after he went down in early April with a hairline fracture in his left fibula. The team has officially listed it as a "left calf contusion."

He had appeared in just four games with the big club before starting an extended health regimen at the Dodgers' offseason training site.

By midweek, the Dodgers announced they were sending the former N.L. rookie of the year to their Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City for a few games. The OKC Dodgers happened to arrive in Albuquerque on Thursday for the start of six-game road series against the Isotopes at Rio Grande Credit Union Field.

Both Bellinger and fellow big leaguer Zach McKinstry were scheduled for brief rehab stints with OKC. The hope is to have both back with the big club within a few days. Each was in the starting lineup Friday night; Bellinger batted No. 2 and played in center, McKinstry batted third and started in left.

"I think that they're both ready to go, I think that they're both bored with the rehab, they want to get out and play," said Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts.

With the game just a few minutes old, Bellinger was introduced to what was the kind of greeting usually reserved for fan favorites in the home dugout. It only took him two pitches to launch a fastball deep into the early evening sky.

Tailing away toward the right field foul pole, the towering fly ball finally settled into the glove of 'Topes rightfielder Sam Hilliard about an arm's length from the padded wall. Bellinger lined a ball to right in his next at-bat, then popped out to shallow left in his third plate appearance.

The fans finally got what they came for in his final at-bat in the sixth inning when he lined an RBI single to right, part of Oklahoma City's 13-3 rout of Albuquerque in front of 4,641 fans, many of whom sported Dodgers jerseys and hats, some bearing Bellinger's familiar No. 35.

With Minor League Baseball's strict protocols for COVID-19 practices, none of the players were made available to the media before or after the game. Bellinger did sign a few autographs for fans poking things through the netting before the game.

His night ended quietly enough in the sixth. With much of the crowd distracted by a between-innings promotion of a T-shirt giveaway, Bellinger gathered his gear and headed out of the Oklahoma City dugout and back to the team's locker room under the first-base concourse. Just before he disappeared from view, he reached up to high-five a fan in a Dodgers road jersey.

Bellinger is expected to be with OKC through the weekend, as Roberts said Friday that there is no timetable for his return to Los Angeles.

"We'll just kind of see how it goes," Roberts reiterated. "Taking at-bats, seeing how they recover being on their feet, and then we'll kind of read and react then."