Yasiel Puig and Hanley Ramirez were bored Monday night.
After a weekend of painful plunks to their respective left hands, the two Los Angeles Dodgers found themselves confined to the dugout for their away opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Like kids stuck inside on a rainy day, they fussed about restlessly before deciding to invent their own entertainment: annoying SportsNet LA reporter Alanna Rizzo.
The two men stuck their hands up and made faces during Rizzo’s live-air segment at the top of the sixth. Puig made a finger mustache, and Ramirez mouthed the lyrics to “Soul Man.”
A professional to the end, Rizzo played along with the distraction.
“Yasiel Puig and Hanley Ramirez continue to not leave me alone,” Rizzo said.
Some people found Puig and Ramirez’s gimmick entertaining.
Puig and Hanley are going to do the things Puig and Hanley do, but there comes a time when they need to let the other pros do their jobs.
The good news is that the kids might not be be cooped up for long. J.P. Hoornstra of InsideSoCal.com reports that Puig and Ramirez didn‘t suffer any broken bones after each was hit by a pitch over the weekend.
On Monday, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told Hoornstra and fellow reporters that Puig and Ramirez are sore and their timetable for return remains fluid.
“Hanley’s sore. Yasiel is still a bit sore,” Mattingly said. “Hanley, we’re not going to try to do anything with. Yasiel, as the day goes on, we’ll see if he can do anything.”
Please, Don. If they can play, get them back on the field. Do it for Alanna. When they’re hurt, she hurts.
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