Dodgers notes: Cody Bellinger, Will Smith, emergency catcher Max Muncy

While we ponder that with Will Smith scratched Friday night due to illness and that Max Muncy was the Dodgers emergency catcher behind Austin Barnes, here are a few stories to start your weekend.

In case you missed it, Friday was Cody Bellinger’s first game at Dodger Stadium as a visitor. He got a well-deserved ovation, then doubled and scored in the Cubs win over the Dodgers.

Among the takeaways from the first two weeks of the season by Juan Toribio in his MLB.com newsletter were the performance of J.D. Martinez and Max Muncy in the middle of the Dodgers lineup, and the struggled of the bullpen.

Bill Plachke at the Los Angeles Times found a way to compare Cody Bellinger leaving the Dodgers to the Lakers breaking up Shaq and Kobe, but also offered this succinct summary of the split: “In the end, the Dodgers didn’t teach well enough and Bellinger didn’t listen well enough and the breakup became inevitable.”

Evan Drellich at The Athletic looked at the future of streamed MLB games and local broadcasts in the wake of several regional sports networks going bankrupt.

In keeping track of the rivals, Giants ace Logan Webb inked a five-year, $90-million contract extension Friday that buys out what would have been three free agent seasons. McCovey Chronicles has more.