Cody Bellinger's Breakout Game Positions Yankees Offense for Surge
Call it a short sample size season.
Coming into yesterday's game, Cody Bellinger was one of the New York Yankees sluggers whose numbers weren't quite up to par. That changed after a big afternoon against the Kansas City Royals, and he was at the center of the 12-4 hit parade.
Before the afternoon, Bellinger was pedestrian, hitting .246/.341/.348 with a slightly above league average 101 wRC+. That changed in a big way after a three-hit day, which saw him hit two home runs and drive in five RBI.
Now Bellinger is right where he should be. He is hitting .274/.368/.452 with a 134 wRC+. That wRC+ is close to where Bellinger was last year, when he had a 125 wRC+, which was the third highest of his career. It's still so early in the season that big games like this can swing an entire season's stat line.
Granted, one of those homers came with the game out of reach. Bellinger's second of the game was off of former Yankees prospect Mitch Spence, who was taken by the Athletics in the Rule 5 draft and later found his way to the Royals after being designated for assignment. By then, the game was 8-0. Bellinger's two-run blast drove it up to a 10-run lead.
That first blast, though, was important in getting the Yankees' offense rolling. It served as a backbreaker for the Royals' pitching staff, and for Spence in particular.
Cody Bellinger puts a two-run shot into the second deck, and the Yanks are off to an early 4-0 lead pic.twitter.com/3fZqYNcFuo
- Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 18, 2026
Earlier in the third inning, Amed Rosario hit a two-run shot. Bellinger's was the second of the inning. With the captain, Aaron Judge, on first, Bellinger sent a Noah Cameron slider that he hung down the heart of the plate 385 feet, traveling off of his bat at 105.1 MPH.
Soon after, Ben Rice homered. It was just another spectacular day for Rice, who has been the heartbeat of the lineup. That drove up the Yankees' score to 5-0.
After the game, Aaron Boone made fun of his $162.5 million man for his lack of home runs until that fun Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, where the Yankees had their first laugher in a while.
"I was joking with him," Boone said, via the New York Post's Greg Joyce. "He'd hit one homer in two months since the start of the spring, and then two in an hour. It's a funny game."
Yankees Offense Waking Up
The Yankees' offense was reminiscent of the one that was the best in the sport in 2025. They ate up bad pitching all year and punished mistakes. That Cameron slider was one of those pitching blunders that would have been crushed a year earlier.
If there's a sign that things might be fine on the offensive side of things, that's one.
The offense is still far behind where it should be statistically. Their team wRC+ spiked to 107 after the Royals' drubbing. That has them ranked as the seventh-best team in the league, behind the Braves, Astros, and, of course, the Dodgers.
There's no reason for the Yankees to be up there with them at some point. There are too many solid bats on this team for them to struggle all year, the way they have at times in 2026. They'll be firing on all cylinders once Jazz Chisholm Jr. gets it going. Bellinger's breakout is also a big part of it.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/yankees/onsi as Cody Bellinger's Breakout Game Positions Yankees Offense for Surge.
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