Yasiel Puig’s wild ride with the Dodgers is over

This was supposed to be the defining moment for Yasiel Puig with the Dodgers. Mired in the sixth inning of a nail-biter Game 4 World Series, Puig smashed a three-run home run that brought Dodger Stadium to a deafening roar.

The Dodgers trailed in the series, but with a lead in Game 4 a tie seemed near, and with a tired Red Sox bullpen after the previous night’s 18-inning marathon, one could see a sliver of light that Los Angeles just might ride this momentum to a championship.

Instead, Puig’s Dodger career lasted just one more game. Boston rallied to take Game 4, then won the title the next night. The telling Game 4 image of Puig went from this:

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

... to this:

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

Now, Puig is gone.

Puig was traded to the Reds on Friday in a salary dump by the Dodgers, who moved Puig, Matt Kemp and Alex Wood for Homer Bailey and two prospects. Bailey was released as part of the deal, so this was more about clearing roster space and money than anything else by Los Angeles.

It ends an era for the Dodgers, with Puig’s six-year tenure in Los Angeles full of ups and downs, but above all else there was never dull moment.

Puig fled Cuba in 2012 and after a harrowing journey that saw him smuggled by human traffickers to Mexico he signed a $42 million contract with the Dodgers. In his first spring training with the Dodgers, he feasted on his first taste of major league action, albeit only in exhibition games. Puig took the Cactus League by storm, hitting .517 (30-for-58), but the club felt the 22-year-old still needed minor league seasoning, more time to develop and acclimate to a new country.

That led to one of my favorite quotes in my time covering the Dodgers, when manager Don Mattingly was asked during spring training how he could send a player like Puig down to the minors.

“Usually I just tell them,” Mattingly said dryly.

Puig did start 2013 in the minors, but he couldn’t be held down for long. By June the Dodgers outfield was literally hamstrung — Kemp and Carl Crawford were nursing leg injuries — and the fledgling Dodgers needed all the help they could get. Los Angeles, the preseason favorite to win the NL West, was nine games under .500 on June 3, but then they got an injection of Puig at a maximum dosage.

Immediately, Puig took the National League by storm. He ended his first major league game with a jaw-dropping throw from right field to complete a double play.

The next night Puig homered twice, then homered in two more games in that first week.

Once June ended, Puig was hitting a whopping .436/.467/.713. In his first month in the majors. This was Joe DiMaggio stuff, quite literally since the only player to top Puig’s 44 hits in his first month was DiMaggio himself 77 years earlier.

The sky was the limit with Puig, who hit .305/.386/.502 in his first two seasons and totaled nearly 10 Wins Above Replacement.

It wasn’t without growing pains for Puig, who was perpetually late, and clashed with teammates and coaches regularly in those first few years. There was an incident in Chicago in 2014 when pitcher Zack Greinke in a snit tossed Puig’s bags off the Dodgers team bus on the side of the road, described by Molly Knight in her book `The Best Team Money Can Buy.`

Also that season Puig so enraged the normally mild-mannered Mattingly that the Dodgers manager couldn’t take it any more. After pinch hitting for Puig in a game in St. Louis, the two had words and met in Mattingly’s office after the game.

“Donnie saw Puig sitting in his chair and almost ripped off his own jersey in rage. He pointed a jagged finger at Puig,” then-general manager Ned Colletti described in his book ‘The Big Chair.’“‘You motherfucker. I’m so tired of your shit,’ he screamed. ‘You think you run this fucking team. You’re a motherfucker.’”

Those first two years Puig might have been a motherfucker, but he was also one of the best players in the game and not yet 24 years old. All the ancillary stuff was worth putting up with because of the production on the field and the hope of what was yet to come.

But baseball has a funny way sometimes of derailing the best-laid plans. In the next two seasons Puig was rather ordinary. He hit just .260/.323/.425 with 22 total home runs in 2015-16, and missed over three months combined with a trio of disabled list stints due to hamstring injuries.

The highlights were few and far between for Puig in those years, and things hit rock bottom when he was optioned to the minors for a month in 2016, after the Dodgers couldn’t find a trade partner.

Trade rumors have been the norm for Puig for several years running, so prevalent that this move should have been expected. But still it feels weird that Puig is no longer a Dodger. The Puig renaissance helped build back his popularity. He set a career high with 28 home runs in 2017 and hit .264/.337/.490 in the last two years combined.

It wasn’t all sunshine in roses the last two years for Puig. He was benched in the final week of the season in 2017 for showing up late, again.

He flipped his bat on balls that had no chance of going out, and in some cases weren’t even a hit:

Puig became must-see TV again, and not just for his play. Sometimes it was just for his tongue.

Either he was licking his bat...

... or wagging his tongue after a triple in the playoffs.

It even extended to overseas.

Puig was building a redemption story, and was a fan favorite.

Hitting .292/.372/.500 in the last two postseasons, helping the Dodgers reach their first two World Series in three decades, certainly helped. He hit a three-run home run that broke open Game 7 of last year’s NLCS in Milwaukee that sent the Dodgers back to the Fall Classic.

Puig hit the three-run home run mentioned above in Game 4 of the World Series, that looked like it might have turned the tide for the Dodgers. But now he’s gone, after playing the most postseason games in the 135-year history of the franchise.

Puig played six seasons with the Dodgers, and they won the division all six years. His career 127 OPS+ ranks 21st in franchise history— minimum 2,000 plate appearances — tied with Kemp, who was traded with Puig to Cincinnati. Friday was a big day for legacy trading in Los Angeles.

At least this trade kept the partnership of Puig and Turner Ward intact. Ward was the Dodgers’ hitting coach the last three seasons, and developed a great bond with Puig.

Ward is now the hitting coach with the Reds.

“Puig is going to bring some excitement to the club that Cincinnati fans are really going to appreciate,” Ward told reporters on Friday. “He’s going to be a guy that goes out there every single day and give it all he’s got.”

He might not have lived up to the superstar promise that those first two years teased, but Yasiel Puig will be missed in Los Angeles.