Dodgers' Yasiel Puig celebratory outbursts hardly rubbing Don Mattingly wrong ...
As a veteran Yankee who carried himself with composure and class at all times, Mattingly seems like he knows Puig's emotional displays won't sit well with some, but he can't help but smile.
Harry How/Getty ImagesThe incorrigible Yasiel Puig can't help but raise his arms after legging out a triple in Game 3 of the NLCS.
LOS ANGELES - On nights like this, Don Mattingly gets this guilty-looking smile on his face when he talks about Yasiel Puig. Like he knows, as a former player who once carried himself with great class, that he really shouldn't enjoy Puig's crazed pump-fists and such, and yet he can't help himself.
'He's just so emotional,' Mattingly said, trying to hold back that smile as he was interviewed on TV during Game 3 of the NLCS on Monday night. 'It's like he's playing Little League. He makes you shake your head but he sure is fun to watch.'
No, there is nothing classy about the way Puig celebrates - prematurely in some cases. But he is as wildly entertaining as he is talented, and so he is playing in the right town, to be sure.
And the Dodgers aren't the same when he's not putting on a show.
In some ways, in fact, they seem to go as he goes, from the time he arrived in June to catapult the Dodgers from losers to winners, all the way to Monday night when he helped jolt his team back to life in this NLCS - and likely just in time as they defeated the Cardinals, 3-0.
Perhaps only Puig could flip his bat high in the air, then stand at the plate and admire what he thought was a sure home run to right field - and still recover in time to fly around the bases and go in standing at third with a triple, throwing a pump-fist to the sky.
It would have been quite a sight even if it hadn't mattered.
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That it mattered hugely, delivering his team's second run of the night made Puig's triple the spectacle of spectacles, sending Dodger Stadium into a screaming, towel-waving frenzy that said this series isn't over after all.
In fact, by beating Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright, as Hyun-Jin Ryu threw a gem for the home team, the Dodgers pulled to within 2-1 and changed the feel of the series.
In doing so they added some spice as well. The Cardinals weren't thrilled with Puig's styling, and Wainwright made a point of saying that Adrian Gonzalez was 'doing some Mickey Mouse stuff' as well at second base after his double scored the Dodgers' first run.
To which Gonzalez smiled and said, 'We are in L.A. so Mickey Mouse stuff does go here. So, you know, it fits us.'
No, the Dodgers don't care what the Cardinals think. And in truth, St. Louis probably should be more worried about its inability to hit. The Cards have scored four runs in the series and they're hitting .127 as a team.
Of course, the Dodgers have only scored four runs themselves, as pitching on both sides continues to dominate. But there's a difference now on L.A.'s side, as Puig came to life, adding a line single to left after his RBI triple, both off Wainwright.
Does that mean the Dodgers can again find the form that made them practically unbeatable for much of the summer, going 42-8 over one stretch?
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It's a good sign, obviously, because Puig was in the middle of everything then for the Dodgers. There's something about his presence, his penchant for making the spectacular play - or spectacular mistake - which seems to ignite the this team when he's on his game.
He hit .417 in against the Braves in the NLDS, but in two games against the Cardinals he was 0-for-10 with six strikeouts.
The scouting report on Puig is hardly a mystery: he'll chase pitches out of the strike zone, especially breaking balls down and away, and the Cardinals also threw fastballs inside to make him more vulnerable to the breaking stuff away.
O n Monday night, however, Puig showed more patience and finally got a couple of pitches he could handle. The rest was either showboating or just what the Dodgers needed, depending on your perspective.
Puig, through an interpreter, avoided questions about not running out of the box, and summed up his game by saying, 'In Cuba you see a lot of emotion on the field. The people in Cuba are born to play baseball and that's what you see on the field.'
Afterward Mattingly admitted to having mixed feelings about Puig's showmanship.
'I'd like to see him run right away, honestly,' he said. 'But obviously, he thought it was gone. I've been dealing with this all year.
'He's just emotional, and it's those areas that we want him to keep getting better at.'
Then that guilty smile came back and told you, at least on this night, exactly where Mattingly stood on the matter.
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