Dodgers News: Yasiel Puig Scratched From Lineup

Welp, add Yasiel Puig’s name to the perpetually growing list of Dodgers tweaks this spring season. He’s been scratched from Saturday’s split squad lineup just a couple hours or so before the first half of the doubleheader is slated to start.

It seems just before every game we find out about some new soreness or tightness pops up to keep a Dodger out of the lineup — a trend the Dodgers have to hope stay in Arizona when they come back to Los Angeles.

The Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett (among others) broke the news.

#Dodgers scratch Yasiel Puig from day game with tightness in left hamstring

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) March 26, 2016

On the face of this news, the frustration comes mostly from this being such a repeated issue.

Now, Roberts did say this (via Eric Stephen of TrueBlueLA) to temper the reaction a little bit.

Dave Roberts on Yasiel Puig: “He wants to play, but I’m going to scratch him, just for the sake of being ready for opening day….

— Eric Stephen (@truebluela) March 26, 2016

More Roberts on Puig: “… Any hint for me right now, I’m going to err on the side of caution.”

— Eric Stephen (@truebluela) March 26, 2016

Back to this being a repeated issue… The obvious thing to point out (as Roberts does) is that there is less than zero reason to push it with players at this point in the spring. So, anytime a player says they have any kind of tightness the Dodgers are right to sit them out. We could have an entirely different conversation about the length of spring training, but I’d be shot in my seat by MLB snipers just for bringing it up.

More specific to the Dodgers is the type of injury they seem to be dealing with. All the tightness and soreness in soft tissue (muscles) can be linked to fatigue, nutrition and hydration (among other things), per Dr. Jennifer Irwin PT, DPT.

This doesn’t necessarily mean we get to blame the brand new training staff, but this isn’t the kind of start they might’ve wanted. As stated earlier, this might come back to more of a desire to avoid bigger issues when games start counting, but this trend needs to stop, and the sooner the better.