Now that the San Francisco Giants are showing a feisty side and have no problem mixing things up a bit, Los Angeles catcher Dalton Rushing might be getting some glares or worse Thursday when he’s back in the Dodgers lineup.
Rushing said before Wednesday’s game at Oracle Park that he did not disparage Giants outfielder Jung Hoo Lee after Lee aggravated an injury in a play at the plate the night before, disputing internet lip readers’ contention that he’d said, “f— ’em” to himself after turning around and seeing Lee still lying at the plate.
Rushing said the first thing he’d done was check with teammate Hyeseong Kim, who is Lee’s World Baseball Classic teammate on South Korea’s team, to see how Lee was.
“That’s the biggest thing, that’s all that matters,” Rushing said of Lee’s health. “Hopefully he didn’t take it the way it was put out. I’ll be sure to say something to his face tomorrow, and make sure he’s OK. There was nothing really directed at him. He’s a great guy.”
Lee has had some issues with his quadriceps since an ungainly slide into home in Washington over the weekend, and came out of the game after Tuesday’s play at the plate. He was back in the lineup Wednesday.
Rushing didn’t have a problem with the slide, saying, “No, he was playing the game. He’s doing what his coach told him to do; the third-base coach sent him, and he ran hard the whole way. It was kind of an awkward slide. That’s all it was.”
Asked what he had said, Rushing responded, “I used a word, but it was not what was said. OK, so I’ll just leave it at that.”
The Giants have shown they’re willing to address slights a day or two later, such as Landen Roupp hitting Spencer Steer with a first-pitch fastball in Cincinnati after Steer’s late timeout and then a muttered expletive afterward had set off reliever JT Brubaker the night before. Logan Webb, the leader of the pitching staff, will be on the mound Wednesday.
Rushing was clear he hopes the Giants don’t see this as an issue, saying the media was making too much of it and reiterating his concern.
“As long as he’s OK and he doesn’t think that I’m coming at him or any of those guys over there,” Rushing said. “I don’t care what other people put out there say, I just want to play the game hard, and that’s what I do every night.
“There was no frustration at all,” he added later. “I play with fire. Everybody that’s ever played with me, everyone that’s watched me play, knows that, and whatever people want to make of it, I hope it’s not negative.”
Giants manager Tony Vitello said Lee dinged his leg up a little earlier in the game, sliding back into the bag, “but he’s all systems go today.”
Since this is two less than perfect slides in a row that left Lee a little shaken up, does Lee need to change something with his technique?
“No, I think that was just more the nature of that tricky play in Washington, during the back-and-forth game,” Vitello said of Lee thunking hard into the plate in an extra-innings game Saturday.