Los Angeles Dodgers midseason awards: Most surprising hitter

We turn from the negative to the positive in our Los Angeles Dodgers midseason awards and will now award the most surprising hitter of the first half.

Just because the Los Angeles Dodgers are not playing during the All-Star Break does not mean we will stop posting content around the Boys in Blue. In fact, the lack of action gives us a good excuse to post different content than we usually would.

Thus, during the All-Star Break, we are giving our four midseason awards for the Los Angeles Dodgers. They are not the traditional MVP, Cy Young or Rookie of the Year awards that you are used to.

Instead, the awards are based on the expectations that we had on the Dodgers leading into the year. First, we started with the most disappointing hitter of the first half, today, we look at the most surprising hitter of the first half.

We totally mean surprising in a good way as well, not in a “wow, that guy is not doing great,” way. Thus, here is our most surprising hitter for the first half of action for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Los Angeles Dodgers most surprising hitter: Chris Taylor

Cody Bellinger was definitely in the running for this award as he has been the best hitter not only on the Los Angeles Dodgers but arguably in the National League. Bellinger has been nothing short of sensational thus far this year and even his outs are hard hit.

It definitely is surprising but I would not say that it is absolutely crazy that Bellinger is playing at an MVP level. We saw these seeds get planted in his rookie year and we even predicted before the year that Bellinger would hit at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs.

He is already to the 30 home run mark, so he will likely blow that out of the water, but still, we technically were correct.

Chris Taylor, on the other hand, has responded from an extremely cold start to the year and has come up huge for the Dodgers while Corey Seager has been injured.

Taylor enters the break with a .269 average and an .801 OPS with eight home runs and 41 RBIs. Since June 11, which is when Seager went down (and Taylor went a dreadful 0-5), Taylor has hit .380 with three home runs, 18 RBIs and a 1.074 OPS.

He has come up with the big hits when the team has needed them most and has been the spark plug for countless rallies. He is starting to look like the 2017 Chris Taylor that fans fell in love with and is much more improved than the 2018 version and pre-June 11th version of himself.

Taylor was not someone that fans expected to do great and rightfully so. However, when the team needed him most, he has stepped up and delivered.