Dalton Rushing has been the most surprising hitter for the Dodgers this season. He is also garnering a reputation as the “bad guy” for the most villainous team in baseball.
Rushing has been involved in a few altercations over the past four series dating back to the Dodgers’ previous road trip, as during their four-game set against the Colorado Rockies, Rushing called the Rockies’ swing decisions during the Dodgers 4-3 loss on April 18 “fishy,” per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic.
“I think it’s odd that some of those hitters that do what they do, they go up there and they’re on the first pitch that was thrown,” Rushing said. “It’s a little fishy but I’ll wear it.”
After Rushing tagged out San Francisco Giants outfielder Jung Hoo Lee at a play at the plate which resulted in him briefly crumbled to the ground, the Dodger catcher looked at Lee momentarily then turned toward the dugout where he shrugged and remarked, “F*ck ’em.” Rushing would later get plunked two games later, and attempted to take out Giants shortstop Willy Adames on a double play ball to second base. Giants second baseman took exception with Rushing’s late slide into Adames, per Katie Woo and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic.
“He slid into Willy’s feet and, for me, that’s no good,” Arráez said. “That’s not good baseball. Thank God Willy’s good and we made the double play.”
During the Dodgers 12-4 win against the Chicago Cubs on Saturday, Rushing failed to throw out Miguel Amaya at second base on a stolen base attempt, calling the Chicago catcher a “fat f*ck.” Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner, who was in the batter’s box during the skirmish, appeared on the Spiegel and Holmes Show on Tuesday where he confirmed that Rushing made the inflammatory comment towards his catcher. He later admitted that he wished he confronted Rushing following the altercation.
“I wish that I had confronted him a little more directly. To be honest, I was pretty taken aback in the middle of my at-bat and it was just kind of a strange thing to experience. Yeah, I felt a little weird about that.”
Both Chris Rose and former big league infielder Trevor Plouffe discussed Rushing’s recent controversies on Thursday on the Baseball Today show.
Per Plouffe: “That’s just something you shouldn’t say no matter what. Who says stuff like that?”
Now that the calendar has turned to May, that means this is the month that Mookie Betts is expected to make his return from injury. With an initial six-week prognosis for his recovery, Betts has noted that he’s well ahead of his expected timeline, but doesn’t want to rush back into things with the team performing well without him, per Doug Padilla of the Orange County Register.
“The boys are playing well, and I don’t have to overly rush back,” he said. “I can make sure they’re doing everything they need to do so I can just kind of sit back and watch.”
Blake Snell pitched well in his most recent rehab start with the Single-A Ontario Tower Buzzers, going three innings on the mound while tossing 39 pitches and striking out six on Tuesday. Snell is expected to return from injury this month as well, and Katie Woo of The Athletic notes that either Emmet Sheehan or Justin Wrobleski could be axed from the rotation when the former two-time Cy Young award winner returns.
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