On the day the Los Angeles Dodgers activated Yasiel Puig from the disabled list, he joked that his hope was there wouldn’t be much running in store for him. Puig’s trouble with hamstring injuries date back to last season when he was limited to a career-low 79 games.
The 25-year-old outfielder said was ready to return prior to the full 15 days of his DL stint being up, then proved as much Wednesday night on an electrifying play. Representing the winning run at the plate, Puig drove a base hit into center field.
Michael A. Taylor overran the ball, which allowed Howie Kendrick to easily score. Puig wasn’t far behind Kendrick, running through Dodgers third base coach Chris Woodward’s stop sign, and diving — flying — into home plate to score the winning run.
“I didn’t see that,” Puig said of Woodward’s signal he hold at third base. “I was listening to my hamstring and trying to figure out how far I could go. If it exploded there, that’s what was going to happen.”
The hit was Pug’s second consecutive after he struck out in his first two at-bats. “Usually in a game you get four at-bats. Sometimes you start bad but can end well,” he said. “I wanted to put the ball in play and that’s what I did.”
Initially, Puig’s well-struck grounder appeared to be nothing more than a fortunate base hit that got by a diving Danny Espinosa and put the tying run in scoring position with one out. “Nobody thought the ball would go through,” Puig said.
“So when I did see it go through, I had to talk to my hamstring so I could figure out how far I could go on the bases.” Puig conducted his postgame interview in what’s become a second uniform of sorts — a ‘Make Baseball Fun Again’ cap and ‘#PUIGMYFRIEND’ t-shirt.
That may soon change, however. “The next hat has to say my hamstring is better again,” Puig quipped. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called Puig’s “home to home” trek was the final test for his hamstring.
The rookie manager also marveled at his innate ability to do the spectacular. “There’s something about Yasiel that’s very fascinating. You love him and you find yourself other times scratching your head. But he definitely brings energy and he can really defend,” Roberts said.
“It’s one of those things where you don’t want to take your eye off him, because something might happen.”
