3 surprising players carrying Dodgers during season-opening hot streak

3. Andrew Heaney

2. Andrew Heaney

1. Andrew Heaney

Nah, just yanking your chain. Since The Heandog sadly hit the Injured List on Wednesday afternoon, we’ll do you one better and provide you with three other active surprises who’ve helped carry the 2022 Dodgers to a hot start.

Consider Heaney an honorable mention atop an overflowing list of Dodgers who’ve been excellent in April, many of whom carried low expectations on Opening Day. After all, after a spring training (and 2021 … and 2020 …) like that, how confident can you really be in some of these folks?

So, yes, Heaney gets a pat on the back for his 10.1 innings of four-hit ball with 16 whiffs. So does Evan Phillips, who went from potential bullpen fodder and a DFA candidate early in the season to a Pitching Ninja regular with his ridiculous breaking stuff. Think he might be a keeper.

Ditto red-hot Dodgers like (breathes way, way in): Tyler Anderson, Alex Vesia, Austin Barnes, Brusdar Graterol, Justin Bruihl … truly, almost anyone who’s put on the uniform so far, save for the Rockies series to open the campaign. Isn’t that how it always goes?

On top of that massive pile of success, though, these three players stood out. For the long odds they overcame. For the feeling of relief that comes with a particularly great opening month. For the redemption of it all. These three Dodgers have been the most surprising torch-carriers so far in a sprint to the top of the NL West.

3 surprise Dodgers who’ve helped carry 2022 Dodgers

3. Cody Bellinger

Spring! Training! Is! Meaningless!

Early in a shortened 2022 camp, Cody Bellinger looked exactly like the old Bellinger — not the 2018 MVP version. That edition seemed so “old” that any recovery mission meant to find it would come up empty-handed.

No, 2022 Bellinger looked like 2021 Bellinger all over again. Stiff, full of holes, and firmly benchable, considering the Dodgers were once again bringing an All-Star team to play and couldn’t be dragged down by nostalgia.

In the early going of the regular season, though, not only is Bellinger’s swagger back, but so is his penchant for extra-base hits. Through 12 games, the 26-year-old (STILL 26!!) has posted three doubles, a triple and two bombs, OPS+ing 156 and piling up 0.5 WAR.

Compare that to when we last saw him, when he was actively subtracting WAR from a team that ultimately lost the NL West by just a single game, and slugged to a stunningly low 45 OPS+ relative to the rest of the league.

From being a shoo-in long-term contract on the Dodgers’ books to being entirely lost and back again, Bellinger has taken a powerful first step in reestablishing a possible future in Los Angeles. Again, he is 26 years old, which seems outright impossible.

Last time, he might’ve cratered and bent under the weight of high expectations. This season, Bellinger has responded to adversity powerfully, reversing course just when things looked bleakest.

2. Gavin Lux

Though Gavin Lux is currently day-to-day while battling a bout of back tightness, one has to assume that tight back is from unexpectedly carrying the bottom of the lineup.

For years, Lux has been an enigma, an upper-echelon infield prospect who couldn’t crack the infield for long stretches of time and found himself shoehorned to center, where he spent much of his time playing catchup. The production never justified participation, and the athleticism never fully translated. Now 24 years old, 2022 was viewed as a potential last-ditch effort to make Lux a part of the program in LA. They’d held onto him long enough, but might’ve had to sell low if he still failed to break out.

What a difference a few weeks makes.

Through 10 games played, Lux is right up there with Bellinger in terms of creating a powerful contribution out of thin air, bucking low expectations. Lux has nearly cracked a full 1.0 WAR, too, posting an 0.7 mark and a 158 OPS+. He’s scored nine runs and walked a remarkable seven times in just 37 plate appearances overall, wreaking havoc on the base paths. Most bizarrely, he’s played left field in a third of his starts, manning second base in the others and performing like a true utility option rather than a round peg forced into square holes.

When the Dodgers have cut the cord with other top prospects in years past — say, Keibert Ruiz — it’s been because they’ve been blocked in front and were being threatened from behind, with potential stars still in the pipeline. Lux? The path to playing time was there, and was handed to him repeatedly. He just wasn’t seizing it.

Hopefully, April 2022 is the month where everything turned.