Cody Bellinger of the New York Yankees watches his eighth-inning, two-run home run against the Chicago Cubs at Yankee Stadium on Friday, July 11, 2025, in New York.

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NEW YORK — Ahead of Friday night’s series opener against the Chicago Cubs, Yankees manager Aaron Boone listed the many ways Cody Bellinger impacts his club before settling on an all-encompassing descriptor.

“Winning player.”

It was fitting, then, that Bellinger was the driving force in the Yankees’ 11-0 victory over the Cubs in the Bronx.

Facing the Cubs for the first time since they traded him to the Yankees last offseason, Bellinger delivered the first three-homer game of his career.

All three home runs were two-run blasts, giving Bellinger six RBIs in a 3-for-5 performance to support a gem by starter Carlos Rodón.

Bellinger’s third-inning homer against right-hander Chris Flexen gave the Yankees a 3-0 lead, while his fifth-inning blast off of left-hander Caleb Thielbar made it a 5-0 game.

After his eighth-inning shot against lefty Jordan Wicks made it a 10-0 game, Bellinger earned a curtain call from a crowd of 46,327.

Bellinger nearly finished with four home runs, but right fielder Kyle Tucker made a leaping catch on a 353-foot drive in the seventh that would have otherwise cleared the wall.

Still, the red-hot Bellinger secured the 18th multi-homer game of his career and his first as a Yankee. He extended his hitting streak to 16 games, which set a new career high.

The Yankees acquired Bellinger, 29, from the Cubs in December, hoping the outfielder/first baseman would improve their defense and pick up some of the offensive production vacated by Juan Soto’s departure to the Mets.

The Cubs, meanwhile, sought payroll relief and had a glut of outfielders following their offseason acquisition of Tucker.

“I get business,” Bellinger said in December during an introductory Zoom call. “I’m very good at separating the business and the baseball. I’m the baseball player and there’s business people in this game, so I just want to prepare and play the best baseball I can.”

The Yankees took on most of the $52.5 million remaining on Bellinger’s contract and sent spot starter Cody Poteet to the Cubs in return.

That’s proven to be a fruitful investment for the Yankees, who have primarily rotated Bellinger in the three outfield spots but use him intermittently at first base, too.

“To be able to go play four positions the way he does, really at a high level, really is impressive,” Boone said before Friday’s game. “The quality of at-bats. The speed. He really runs well. He just does a lot of really good things on a baseball field that help you win.”

Bellinger won National League Rookie of the Year in 2017 and NL MVP in 2019 with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he underwent right shoulder surgery after the 2020 season and struggled offensively the next two years.

The Dodgers non-tendered him before the 2023 season, leaving Bellinger to sign a one-year prove-it deal with the Cubs. Bellinger returned to his All-Star form in 2023, then re-signed with Chicago before the 2024 season on a three-year, $80 million contract featuring opt-outs after every year.

“Cody’s got very, very good instincts,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said Friday. “He’s a smart, smart baseball player. You kind of knew that playing across from him, that’s he’s just kind of good at everything, but that’s what he does for me. He’s just a good baseball player.”

When the Cubs sought to trade him last offseason, Bellinger — the son of former Yankees outfielder/infielder Clay Bellinger — put the Yankees atop his wish list.

Bellinger is now hitting .341 with eight homers and 22 RBIs in 34 games since the start of June.

His big game backed Rodón, who struck out eight against four hits and a walk over eight shutout innings.

Boone visited the mound after Rodón allowed a two-out single to Nico Hoerner in the eighth, putting runners at the corners, but the manager let the left-hander face one more batter, earning rapturous applause from the near-capacity crowd.

On his 109th pitch, Rodón got Tucker to line out to a diving Aaron Judge, who also robbed Pete Crow-Armstrong of a home run and Dansby Swanson of a single in the fourth inning.

Rodón shut down a Cubs offense that entered Friday averaging an MLB-best 5.41 runs per game.

That performance came hours after he was named to the All-Star Game, replacing teammate Max Fried, who is set to start for the Yankees on Saturday and thus opted against pitching in next week’s exhibition in Atlanta.

Friday’s win was the Yankees’ fifth in a row, with that streak immediately following a six-game losing skid.