{"id":283488,"date":"2026-04-24T08:17:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/283488\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:17:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:17:47","slug":"dodgers-catcher-denies-disparaging-giants-lee-after-tagging-him-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/283488\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers catcher denies disparaging Giants\u2019 Lee after tagging him out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the San Francisco Giants<\/a> 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\u2019s back in the Dodgers lineup.<\/p>\n

Rushing said before Wednesday\u2019s game at Oracle Park that he did not disparage Giants outfielder Jung Hoo Lee<\/a> after Lee aggravated an injury in a play at the plate the night before, disputing internet lip readers\u2019 contention<\/a> that he\u2019d said, \u201cf\u2014 \u2019em\u201d to himself after turning around and seeing Lee still lying at the plate.<\/p>\n

Rushing said the first thing he\u2019d done was check with teammate Hyeseong Kim, who is Lee\u2019s World Baseball Classic teammate on South Korea\u2019s team, to see how Lee was.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the biggest thing, that\u2019s all that matters,\u201d Rushing said of Lee\u2019s health. \u201cHopefully he didn\u2019t take it the way it was put out. I\u2019ll be sure to say something to his face tomorrow, and make sure he\u2019s OK. There was nothing really directed at him. He\u2019s a great guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s play at the plate. He was back in the lineup Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Rushing didn\u2019t have a problem with the slide, saying, \u201cNo, he was playing the game. He\u2019s 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\u2019s all it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what he had said, Rushing responded, \u201cI used a word, but it was not what was said. OK, so I\u2019ll just leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giants have shown they\u2019re willing to address slights a day or two later, such as Landen Roupp<\/a> hitting Spencer Steer with a first-pitch fastball in Cincinnati after Steer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Rushing was clear he hopes the Giants don\u2019t see this as an issue, saying the media was making too much of it and reiterating his concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as he\u2019s OK and he doesn\u2019t think that I\u2019m coming at him or any of those guys over there,\u201d Rushing said. \u201cI don\u2019t care what other people put out there say, I just want to play the game hard, and that\u2019s what I do every night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no frustration at all,\u201d he added later. \u201cI play with fire. Everybody that\u2019s ever played with me, everyone that\u2019s watched me play, knows that, and whatever people want to make of it, I hope it\u2019s not negative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giants manager Tony Vitello<\/a> said Lee dinged his leg up a little earlier in the game, sliding back into the bag, \u201cbut he\u2019s all systems go today.\u201d<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I think that was just more the nature of that tricky play in Washington, during the back-and-forth game,\u201d Vitello said of Lee thunking hard into the plate in an extra-innings game Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now that the San Francisco Giants are showing a feisty side and have no problem mixing things up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[10897,72189,101,4820,103,102,104,106,105,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-283488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-giants","9":"tag-jung-hoo-lee","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-giants","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}