For Cody Bellinger, maybe the most maddening day was Aug. 11, when he grounded into inning-ending double plays in two of the first three innings of a Dodgers loss to the Padres. Bellinger might be the fastest Los Angeles player, and it was the first time -- and remains the only time -- he’s done that twice in the same game.

For Christian Yelich, it could have been Aug. 14 at Wrigley Field, when he encountered a bucket of chewing gum on a night he served as the Brewers' designated hitter.

“I was so terrible up there tonight,” Yelich said after that game. “I was down there in the tunnel getting loose and was like, ‘I’m going to put gum in my mouth and chew that and not think about how [lousy] my at-bats have been.’ So I stopped thinking about it, and I just swung. I was like, ‘I’m going to swing because I haven’t swung all night and I should probably swing.’ So, I swung at a changeup.”

Yelich hit the changeup for a home run in a 4-3 win over the Cubs, one of his 12 homers while slashing .205/.356/.430. A .786 OPS might work just fine for some big leaguers, but for Yelich, it represented a 314-point drop from the year before. He spent the summer in what looked like a permanent state of frustration.

Bellinger, meanwhile, slashed .239/.333/.455 for the Dodgers, with 12 home runs himself. His .789 OPS represented a 246-point plummet from the year before, when he went neck and neck with Yelich in a highly entertaining race for the National League MVP Award. Yelich, the 2018 winner, finished runner-up to Bellinger in '19, and the two became great friends along the way.

They haven’t seen each other much in 2020, as Yelich’s Brewers played only teams from the American League Central and NL Central, while Bellinger's Dodgers played teams from the AL West and NL West. But they will meet Wednesday in Game 1 of a best-of-three NL Wild Card Series at Dodger Stadium.

Here’s the best part: They both get a clean slate.

“It certainly is healthy -- and helpful -- when the stats don’t matter, it’s just about playing to help your team win a baseball game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “This is a crazy year, this shortened season.”

Crazy thing is, Yelich predicted it.

Back in early July as clubs reconvened in their home ballparks, Yelich pointed out the potential peril ahead. After a three-and-a-half-month hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were embarking on a three-week Summer Camp ahead of a 60-game regular season, in which no one would have the time to recover from a slow start. Yelich put it plainly, saying, “You’re going to see really good players have really bad years.”

Yelich was right -- ask anyone from the Cubs' Javier Báez to the Rockies' Nolan Arenado -- but Yelich didn’t intend to be one of them. After beginning the season 1-for-27 with 12 strikeouts, Yelich got better as the year went on, but his strikeout rate went from about 20 percent in each of his first five full seasons in the Majors to 30.8 percent in 2020.

At the same time, Yelich was swinging less -- from 44 percent to 45 percent of the time in his first two seasons with the Brewers to 34.6 percent in 2020 – and whiffing more -- on 33.6 percent of swings, up from 23 percent in '18 and 28.2 percent in ‘19. When Yelich made contact, it was still loud; his 94 mph average exit velocity was third best among qualified hitters, according to Statcast, right ahead of the Angels' Mike Trout. But Yelich’s .259 batting average on balls in play was down from .355 last year.

“You battle to the end to try to find a way,” Yelich said. “That kind of encapsulates our team a little bit. ... You never know when it’s going to change for you. For us, we’ve got a new season. We have an 0-0 record. Everybody’s slate is wiped clean. It’s what you can do with the opportunity that we’ve earned. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We have a big challenge ahead of us.”

Brewers manager Craig Counsell sees more consistency from Yelich of late and said this week, “I feel like he can be a difference-maker in this series. I thought he had a good series in St. Louis [to finish the regular season], and I think he’s in a great place. The regular season for me is over. It’s in the past. I think Christian has a chance to come up huge for us.”

The Dodgers feel the same about Bellinger, who spent the winter reworking his swing after struggling in the 2019 postseason and continued to tinker as he fought through '20. Standing on the plate, backing off, fully upright, soften the knees. Bat on the shoulder, bat off the shoulder. Like Yelich, Bellinger's final results were fine, but nothing close to what the player himself expected. Bellinger hit .191 in at-bats resolved on breaking balls, down about 50 points from last year. His swing rates and strikeout rates remained steady, but the damage wasn’t there.

Lately, however, Roberts sees signs.

“I think for me, I see some balls hit on a line to left-center,” Roberts said. “I see some balls hard up the middle. I think he’s taking his walks. Those are things that showed me it's trending in the right direction.”

Roberts was talking about Yelich when he said this. But it could apply to Bellinger, too.

“You kind of throw out the stat sheet once you get to the postseason,” Roberts said, “and understand that he’s still a superstar player.”