We here at The Outside Corner aren’t necessarily in the business of caring about history. Despite the fact that Josh Beckett did that whole no-hitter thing on Sunday afternoon, the constant story coming out of Hollywood continues to be Yasiel Puig. There’s a reason that we have created a weekly column reviewing the week of the most polarizing player in baseball. And in our second edition, Puig is showing that there isn’t going to be a shortage of content any time soon.
The big story for Puig this week actually took place in the field, and it wasn’t a gaffe with the glove or on the basepaths. It was actually an outstanding play at Citi Field against the New York Mets last Thursday night. Here is the play:
Just an absurd effort from Puig there, ranging back to right-center field in a full sprint and laying out going backwards. He does a lot of dumb things in the field, but when we look back at the top plays from the regular season at the end of the year, that one’s sure to be in the mix.
In addition to what he did on the field, Puig drew the ire of at least one opposing player this week. That player was Mets reliever Carlos Torres, who had some strong words about Puig. It would appear that he isn’t just polarizing among the fans, but some players as well:
“For me, personally, I’m a ballplayer. I’m an athlete. I am a guy who actually enjoys the game and competing. I don’t care to watch him,” Torres said. “If you look at Heyward’s catch where he was flying through the outfield, laying out, he actually made a way better catch than Yasiel Puig’s. And that was earlier in the season. But since it’s not Puig, nobody cares. No one is paying attention.”
That was Torres on MLB Network Radio and was just one piece of a pretty serious analysis of Puig the ballplayer. Torres went on to analyze Puig’s stance at the plate, noting his up-and-down style, in addition to calling out the media for putting so much, apparently undeserved, focus on Puig. Puig has no shortage of critics out there for the way he plays the game, and it appears that it’s not limited to the mainstream media and the fans.
Imagine a bat flip off of Torres, though, if Puig were to match up against him in the future. It’d land in the next area code.
In what is sure to become something of a weekly element of The Weekly Puig, Yasiel has managed to generate quite the presence on Instagram.
We’ve got Puig posting photos of himself bat flipping.
We’ve got photos of Puig at Universal Studios.
We’ve got photos of Puig at the MLB Fan Cave in a sweatshirt featuring….Yasiel Puig. Stay tuned, as there are surely many more to come.
Speaking of the MLB Fan Cave…Puig was there this week, showing fans how to flip bats for any occasion.
He also had some fun inside the Cave itself.
And lastly, what’s a Weekly Puig without our #PuigBatFlip of the Week?
