Just when you thought you’d heard everything from Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, he comes up with a new one.

Prior to Monday night’s exciting come-from-behind 5-3 walk-off win over the Miami Marlins, Mattingly told reporters that Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig had an MRI on his injured left hamstring earlier in the day but the results wouldn’t be known until later that night.

After the game Mattingly cleared things up perfectly when asked specifically what the MRI revealed.

“Ah… I don’t know if it… it… if they… didn’t go… I know it wasn’t… um… nothing major. I think we definitely had a little bit of a setback though and obviously it slowed the rehab down,” said Mattingly.

Huh?

If that didn’t clear everything up for you, there’s this:

“As I talked about in Denver, the reason for rehab games are so that you don’t… you find out if a guy is really healthy,” Mattingly said. “You can’t really find out game speed until you get there, and running around the bases is how you find out to some degree how they are. You can’t simulate game movements and game stop and start and that’s why you play rehab games. We felt like he was close and obviously he wasn’t as close as we thought.”

If this wasn’t a complete bob and weave to avoid a direct question, nothing is. If there is a tear in Puig’s hamstring then just say so. If there isn’t then just say that. What good does it do to feed us a bunch of double-talk? It certainly doesn’t change the results.

Puig re-injured his left hamstring last Friday night while trying to leg out a grounder during his second rehab game with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

What Puig’s MRI “setback” did confirm is that hamstring injuries, however slight, simply do not heal in a 15-day DL stint – it didn’t for Matt Kemp, it didn’t for Juan Uribe, it didn’t for Carl Crawford, it didn’t for Hanley Ramirez and so on and so on. And with an abundance of outfielders – all of whom are doing exceptionally well right now – why even try to rush Puig back? Give him the 30-45 days that it takes for a hamstring to heal properly and then send him out on a rehab assignment.

For those who think that Yasiel Puig was dogging it during his recovery or in his two short rehab games, or who think that he didn’t stretch properly, or who blame the Dodgers training and conditioning staff for the “setback,” all I can say is nonsense. I was there. I was at Mavericks Stadium in Adelanto and watched the 24-year-old star outfielder stretch with trainers prior to his May 8 rehab game – the game in which he re-injured his left hamstring. I saw him bust out of the batters box and run 100% trying to leg out a high chopper to third. He wasn’t dogging it, he wasn’t being lazy, he was trying to help his team by getting on base – and he would have beaten the throw had he not pulled up when he was 25 feet from the bag having obviously re-injured his hammy. The only way that this unfortunate setback could have been avoided is if Puig had not even began his rehab assignment yet – period.

Puig spent more than  10 minutes stretching prior to the game on May 8.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Why Mattingly feels the need to keep the media and Dodger fans in the dark over the MRI results is anyone’s guess. But my guess is that the injury is worse than initially thought – at least it is now. But even if this is the case, what’s the big secret? Why the subterfuge? What’s wrong with telling it like it is? This isn’t a trade secret or something that if revealed will give an opponent an advantage.

Fortunately, with Andre Ethier, Scott Van Slyke, Alex Guerrero and Kike Hernandez – along with Joc Pederson – the Dodgers have the outfield depth to get through this Puig-less crisis; and for that, you have to give Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi credit – regardless of what Mattingly doesn’t tell us.