Why Cody Bellinger is bullish on returning to elite form with Yankees

Cody Bellinger’s return to The Bronx will turn back the clock. In 2000 and 2001, he was one of those kids running around the field after World Series games, when his father’s Yankees were beating the Mets and losing to the Diamondbacks.

Clay Bellinger was a utilityman with a 5- or 6-year-old son who was being raised upstate, Cody playing in the children’s room for players’ families — “I grew up with the Pettittes,” Cody said — at the old Stadium.

Can Cody Bellinger’s return to The Bronx turn back the clock to 2019, too, when he was National League MVP and demolishing baseballs with the Dodgers?

It is a lot to ask from a player who sunk to become one of the worst hitters in baseball in 2021-22 and bounced back to be a solid, if unspectacular, batter the past two seasons.

But Bellinger believes he still can be the type of slugger he once was. Back in 2019, he crushed 47 home runs and posted a 1.035 OPS.

“I do think that it is in the tank,” Bellinger said over Zoom on Thursday, two days after he was traded from the Cubs to the Yankees. “With that, you never know the future. And I try not to set future numbers. I just want to go out and play the best baseball I can play — defense, running the bases and just helping the team win.”