Yasiel Puig admires a long single and gets benched for it

When a baseball is pitched and it comes off the bat, a player isn’t always sure where it’s going to land. Sometimes it hangs up there just long enough for a fielder to get to it. Or it looks like it’s going to be a fly ball, and instead it hits the cheering crowd. But sometimes the opposite happens, and a no-doubt homer hits the wall and the player is left scrambling for safety. That’s what happened to Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig on Tuesday, and he paid the price.

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(Getty Images) In the bottom of the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds game, Puig came up to bat with one out and men on the corners. Puig sent the first pitch from Reds reliever Daniel Wright high in the air, sailing toward the right field wall. It looked like it might be out of the park, and Puig certainly thought so too, as he took an extra second after he swung to watch it.

But Dodger Stadium was able to contain the ball, which knocked off the center of the wall and bounded into the field. One man scored, and Puig ended up on first with a long single. If he hadn’t stopped to watch the ball, he very well could have been on second.

That didn’t end up mattering quite so much a few batters later. Puig, who had advanced to second on a fielder’s choice, had the chance to score when Reds first baseman Joey Votto couldn’t cleanly pick a single off the bat of Howie Kendrick. He had the chance and he took it, sliding in belly-first and just getting his hand on home plate.

[Previously: Yasiel Puig’s braincramp on the bases frustrates A.J. Ellis]

That hustle didn’t matter to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, though. He benched Puig before the seventh inning for failing to run out of the box, which resulted in a long single instead of a double. Puig was asked about it after the game, and he had a very Puig response.

Quote of the night — Puig was asked if this was 1st time he’d been pulled from a game: “I don’t remember. You’d have to ask Don Mattingly”

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) May 25, 2016