Baseball can be a cruel sport. One day you’re laughing and joking around with fellow major leaguers in a spacious major league clubhouse feasting like kings and traveling from city to city on chartered jets, and the next you’re back in a cramped minor league clubhouse eating sack lunches and spending countless hours traveling from town to town – some that many have never heard of before – on a bus.

But alas, such is the life of a professional baseball player.

When you stop and realize that of the millions who play baseball in nearly every country around the world that there are only 750 who play at the game’s highest level, it is absolutely mind-boggling. That’s it, only 750 in the world.

On Friday, 22-year-old Dodgers outfielder Alex Verdugo was one of them. On Saturday, he will not be.

It’s not that the Tucson, Arizona native and Dodgers 2014 second round draft pick out of Sahuaro High School did anything wrong; in fact, he did just about everything right. It’s just that Verdugo was called up to The Show as a temporary replacement for 27-year old Dodgers All-Star outfielder Yasiel Puig, who landed on the disabled list on July 8 for a strained right oblique he suffered on a swing during a game against the Angels of Anaheim.

Puig, who suffered a strained right oblique on July 8, is expected to be activated from the DL prior to Saturday’s game against the Braves in Atlanta. (Video capture courtesy of ESPN)

Prior to his oblique injury, Puig was hitting .265 with 11 home runs, 17 doubles, and 35 RBI.

In Puig’s absence, Verdugo went 5-for-16 (.313) at the plate, with  one home run, one double, three runs scored, and two RBI in the four games in which he played. He also walked twice and struck out once, while showing excellent plate discipline. Verdugo also made several dazzling defensive plays … albeit not quite Yasiel Puig dazzling.

Verdugo slugged his first home run of the season in Friday night’s 4-1 win over the Atlanta Braves.
(Video capture courtesy of Fox Sports)

But regardless of how well Verdugo (and fellow Dodgers minor league outfielder Andrew Toles) played during Puig’s absence, the Cienfuegos, Cuba native is expected to be activated from the DL prior to Saturday’s game against the Atlanta Braves at Sun Trust Park, with Verdugo expected to be optioned back to Triple-A Oklahoma City.

As most Dodger fans know, Puig was signed as an amateur free agent by the Dodgers on June 29, 2012 to a huge 7-year / $42 million contract after having defected from Cuba. At the time of his signing, the oft-controversial but always entertaining Dodgers outfielder received a $12 million signing bonus and is guaranteed an average annual salary of $6 million through the 2018 season. He becomes arbitration eligible in 2019 and will be a free agent in 2020.

In other words, money plays, and Puig’s $42 million easily trumps Verdugo’s MLB minimum of $545,000, which is prorated for the actual number of days spent on the team’s 25-man roster.

But alas, such is the life of a professional baseball player.

In the three rehab games that Puig played in with the OKC Dodgers, he went 2-for-11 (.182) with a walk and a strikeout. In the 67 games that Verdugo has played in at OKC thus far this season prior to his brief call up, he posted an outstanding slash-line of .349 / .396 / .506 for an excellent .902 OPS.

The bad news is that Alex Verdugo will be sorely missed on the big league club.

The good news is that there is zero doubt that the extremely popular young outfielder will return to the Dodgers when rosters expand on September 1st – or perhaps sooner in the event of an injury or an unexpected roster move with the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline only four days away.

Stay tuned…

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UPDATED July 28, 2018 at 1:00 pm (PT):  Yasiel Puig has indeed been activated from the 10-day disabled list and Alex Verdugo optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.