Yasiel Puig and Matt Kemp appeared to get into a heated exchange during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 11-3 win over the Colorado Rockies on Monday night, but no one on the team has been willing to say why. The altercation took place during the sixth inning. Manager Don Mattingly was later seen speaking to Puig through Puig’s interpreter.
As you might expect, Mattingly kept the details of the incident in-house.
“Oh, just talking in the dugout, same old things,” he told reporters sarcastically, via Mark Saxon of ESPNLosAngeles.com. “We’re like the [Oakland] A’s, the ’72 A’s.”
The A’s won three consecutive championships in the 1970s but were notorious for getting into fights with their own teammates. Reggie Jackson and Billy North even had an full-blown brawl in 1974.
Kemp was equally vague, basically ignoring any questions about his exchange with Puig.
“A good game we played today, huh? Good game,” he said. “Go Dodgers!”
Kemp had struck out and Puig had walked during the sixth inning. The Dodgers ended up scoring eight runs in the frame, but Saxon speculated that Kemp may have been upset with Puig when the youngster didn’t take third base on Adrian Gonzalez’s single before Kemp came to the plate.
Mattingly was reportedly upset with Puig in spring training over his baserunning blunders, so that wouldn’t be a surprise. We all know how much of a scatter brain he can be.
