You would expect it from the national media, the chronic Puig bashing – especially for his recent benching for ‘phoning it in.’ But you wouldn’t expect a local writer to keep beating this dead horse, certainly not after Puig’s phenomenal near record-setting 4 for 5 night on Friday, but that’s exactly what happened.

Seriously?
(Photo credit – Reed Saxon)

During Friday’s pre-game interview in a sweltering Dodger dugout, one local writer asked Dodger manager Don Mattingly no less than three times (in three different ways) about Puig’s benching issue. Among a sea of rolling eyes and to his credit, Mattingly calmly answered the writer’s question no less than three times and everyone assumed that the matter was finally over with. (Can you imagine if it had been Tommy Lasorda? We’d all be rolling on the floor laughing at another opinion of Kingman’s performance-type rant).

But is wasn’t over with.

That same group of local Dodger beat writers (and a slew of Korean media) gathered again in the media room for Mattingly’s post-game interview after his team pounded the San Diego Padres 9-2 (due in a large part to Puig’s big night along with Adrian Gonzalez’s two home runs) and the Puig benching issue came up yet again. (I’m not making this stuff up). This time Mattingly’s answer was a little different. This time he made it known that enough was enough.

“Seriously? We have to go back into all this again?” said a visibly annoyed Mattingly, although he politely answered the question anyway.

“He was fine. He played the game the way we wanted,” answered Mattingly. “The other day is over. He was great tonight. He made a good decision on the bases on the ball in the hole, he got a couple good jumps on the stolen bases and was patient over there. I thought he was good,” added Mattingly, hoping that this issue has finally been put to rest.

But somehow I think that someone will ‘go back into all this again’… again – because that’s what some writers do.

…seriously.