First Division: Three ways the Rays do it

The Tampa Bay Rays weren't supposed to win this year, but they lead the American League East and they're thick in the race for the First Division and the East League. The Rays succeed by doing a lot right under the radar.

Tampa Bay pitching coach Jim Hickey is one of the main reasons the Rays keep winning (Wknight94/Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

We all thought it must have been good while it lasted, but we also thought it must be over. We all thought the Tampa Bay Rays couldn't win anymore.

After six straight winning seasons – five with 90 or more wins – the Rays fell to 77-85 in 2014, and the losses didn't end there. Within the same four months in 2014, the Rays traded pitching ace David Price, lost manager Joe Maddon to the Chicago Cubs and lost general manager Andrew Friedman to the Los Angeles Dodgers. That's a No. 1 starter and a brain trust gone from a team playing in a stadium no one likes, a team that couldn't afford big free agents even if it could attract them, and a team with little apparent appeal within its region.

But the Rays are back on top this year, leading the American League East and, incidentally, contending hard in the First Division. The question of the day: How do the Rays do it?

We don't have the answers, but here are three aspects of the Rays that we like, and which might, at least, pass for clues:

1. The pitching coach. About 10 years ago, it seemed as though FOX Sports was on a mission to make a media star of Jim Hickey, the Houston Astros pitching coach back then. Some of us got kind of tired of looking at him, and, anyway, who couldn't coach that pitching staff? The Astros has Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Brad Lidge, among others.

Hickey became Tampa Bay's pitching coach in 2007. The Rays don't have guys like Clemens, Pettitte and Lidge this year. They don't even have Price or James Shields. But, according to baseball-reference.com through June 24, they have the best ERA (3.28) and the best ERA-plus (121) in the American League, and they've thrown the second-most strikeouts (617).

None of this is unusual in Tampa Bay. In Hickey's first eight seasons as the pitching coach there (2007-14), the Rays led the AL in strikeouts (9,924), WHIP (1.28) and opponent's batting average (.247), while running second in ERA (3.94). That WHIP, according to the Rays' website, is the lowest over an eight-year period by any team since the New York Yankees hit the same number from 1976 through 1983.

By the way, the Rays are doing it right now with Matt Moore, Alex Cobb, Drew Smyly and Jake Odorizzi – all of whom would be in this rotation if they were healthy – making a total of 15 starts this season. Put those four healthy with Chris Archer and you've got an enviable rotation.

Jim Hickey can get it done without Clemens, Pettitte, Lidge, Price, Shields or any stars. This man can coach up a pitching staff. And he might be Reason No. 1 why the Rays are where they are.

2. Strong defense up the middle. So many teams under-estimate the importance of having guys who know how to defend behind the plate, at second base, at shortstop and center field. But if you're looking for a cost-effective improvement with under-valued skills – let's just say the whole world has caught up to on-base percentage by now. Strong defense up the middle is another matter.

The Rays are paying catcher Rene Rivera, second baseman Logan Forsythe, shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera and center fielder Kevin Kiermaier a combined $10.3 million this season – $7.5 million of it for Cabrera, who they signed this year as a free agent. By the count of baseball-reference.com through June 24, they combined for 3.0 defensive WAR. All of these players are plus defenders through their Major League careers.

You don't see the Rays give up many bases defensively. They don't hit enough to get away with that, and everyone knows it. When the Rays give up bases defensively, they lose. With good pitching and good defense, the Rays win, even if they are 13th in the American League with 273 runs scored.

3. Prime-aged players. Maddon made a fascinating remark when the Rays signed James Loney as a free agent before the 2013 season. It's safe to say that Loney's previous two franchises, the Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox, did not engage the Rays in a bidding war. But the Rays were glad to sign him, and Maddon noted at the time that Loney was 29, an age when a lot of players, Maddon said, start to figure it out.

Why don't the rest of us think like that? We'll see a player who's 27, 28, 29 and never made much impact in the Major Leagues, and we just suppose he's not worth the trouble because ... what? Because he's not going to have a Hall of Fame career?

We must be crazy. The Rays have it exactly right. They don't shop for Hall of Famers. But they will run a guy out there in his late twenties athletic prime so long as he can produce a little bit and not kill them fundamentally. They're happy to take his two or three good seasons, then move on. There are always a few guys lying around who are 28 or 29, just now figuring it out, and they're not expensive.

Every heard of Joey Butler? That's because he's 29 and never done anything. Until this year, when he's giving the Rays a 140 OPS-plus (.840 OPS), mostly as their designated hitter. Forsythe was a first-round pick by the San Diego Padres in 2008 and has never distinguished himself. But he's 28 now, playing a good second base and OPSing .824.

Rivera is 31, Loney is 31, Cabrera is 29, Evan Longoria is 29, David DeJesus is 35, Kiermaier is 25, Steven Souza is 26, Brandon Guyer is 29 and Jake Elmore is 28. That's the lion's share of Tampa Bays at-bats and defensive innings. It's a no-name group, and definitely not a young group. It's an experienced group and, to be sure, those experiences haven't all been glorious throughout their lives in professional baseball, but it is experience and it does matter. At the same time, it's not so much experience that the players are flat-up old.

The Rays do an awful lot well under the radar. That's why they're above everyone else in the American League East.

Dodgers improve by inches, not miles

The Dodgers didn't create much of a sensation at the non-waiver trading deadline, obviously. But they did improve their ball club by adding three guys who weren't even stars with poor clubs. The Dodgers picked up what they need, which isn't stars.

Roberto Hernandez, pitching as Fausto Carmona for the Cleveland Indians in 2008 (Eric Kilby/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

On the heels of two huge deals involving high-end pitching at the at the non-waiver trading deadline two weeks ago, some wondered why the Dodgers were silent.

But the Dodgers got it right. Instead of dealing away a prospect or two for a high-priced, two-month pitcher rental, the Dodgers made precisely the kind of deal this corner advocates. In fact, they made three deals illustrating the principle that one improves a ball club by inches rather than miles, picking up three solid big leaguers to fill marginal roles and, apparently, giving up next to nothing.

Earlier discussions in these pages have addressed the typical over-valuing of "name" pitchers at the non-waiver trading deadline – a pitcher qualifying as a "name" if he happens to be the pitcher with the best reputation among those who are available at the moment. Last year, the "name" at the bewitching hour was Bud Norris.

At that moment, we took a stab at complaining about deadline trades, because so many of them miss the immediate principle behind the trade. The general rule here advised is this: You're dealing for right now. You're trading for outs, immediate outs. Not names. It doesn't mean you must bargain away future prospects. It means you need a pitcher who is getting batters out at this moment.

He might not be a famous pitcher. He might be someone who is lost in the shuffle, perhaps the third- or fourth-best starting pitcher on a last-place club like the Philadelphia Phillies. He might be a guy who's only going to cost $1.5 million bucks for two months of regular season, and a couple of less-heralded prospects. And you might get a guy who has been through a couple of battles.

He might be, for example, Roberto Hernandez, who came to the Dodgers last week in exchange for two players to be named later. One wonders when hearing about players to be named later how much of it is provisional on how well the Dodgers fare for the rest of this season, but reports indicate that at least it doesn't involve Corey Seager, Joc Pederson or Julio Urias.

Hernandez fits the bill as a pitcher who is getting hitters out now. He only did 6-8 with a 3.87 ERA for the Phillies before last week's trade, and his WHIP was 1.347. From 2011 through 2013, he was 13-31 with a 5.19 ERA 198 starts. In nine Major League seasons, Hernandez is 65-90 with a 4.58 ERA in 198 starts. Baseball-Reference.com puts his lifetime WAR at 6.2, with negative WAR in five of his last six seasons entering 2014. But none of that really matters. Hernandez is getting hitters out now.

Throw out his first five starts this year and he's got a 3.33 ERA with a .242 batting average against him on balls hit in play starting on April 29 through his last start with the Phillies on Aug. 1. That's two months with 93 1/3 innings in 15 starts, which means he has gotten into the seventh inning, on average.

In his last seven starts with the Phillies, beginning on June 23, Hernandez tossed a 2.85 ERA in 47 1/3 innings over seven starts, just about seven innings per start. Batters hit .189 against him, with a .212 batting average on balls hit in play. Only one home run against him.

So, maybe his name isn't David Price or Jon Lester – it isn't even Fausto Carmona! – but Hernandez has been getting the job done and, we add, those last seven starts came against, among others, the Atlanta Braves, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Milwaukee Brewers, the San Francisco Giants and the Washington Nationals, all strong playoff contenders.

In his first start for the Dodgers on Aug. 8, Hernandez simply did what he's been doing while hiding in plain site for the last two months. He gave up two runs in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers, but that was all they got through his six innings and he left with a 3-2 lead. Had Hernandez pitched into the seventh, he would have fared no worse than the Dodgers bullpen, which promptly gave up four runs on the way to a 9-3 loss in Milwaukee.

If Hernandez keeps doing that, or close to it, then he's what the Dodgers need, which is just a fourth starter who will keep them in games for the rest of the regular season. As the No. 4, Hernandez isn't who Dodgers will lean upon to carry them through the playoffs.

Hernandez should get no more than one start in each playoff series, because the smart postseason play for the Dodgers is to lean on their strong front three of Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Hyun-jin Ryu. Again, if the Dodgers had traded the farm for David Price, they would have acquired much more pitcher than they actually need in exchange for much more future than they need to give up. The postseason schedule never forces a team to play four days in a row, so it's no strain to pile almost every start on the front three while giving all of them their four days of rest each time, and maybe a little more.

Assuming one day off between series and a day off for each venue change within a series, and also assuming the maximum number of games in each series, let's additionally assume that the Dodgers go with Kershaw in their first game of the playoffs. If they follow, in turn, with Greinke and Ryu, they can keep all three in rotation on regular rest for as long as the playoffs take. In that event, they would only need Hernandez for one start in each series, and only if the series goes at least six games in the last two rounds.

Maybe the arrangement doesn't give the Dodgers maximum flexibility, but we can't say it doesn't give them enough starting pitching. Would it really be worthwhile to take starts from any of those three just to make sure Price gets enough starts? It it worth someone like Corey Seager or Joc Pederson? Do the Dodgers gain as much as they lose in that exchange?

Probably not, though we grant that the Detroit Tigers look a lot less wrong in the trade for David Price now that Anibal Sanchez has been placed in the disabled list and Justin Verlander might be going there. You can't plan for injuries, and the Tigers certainly didn't, because you really shouldn't plan for injuries, unless some player is especially vulnerable to injury. If the Dodgers should lose one of their front three, we won't blame the front office for laying off Price. It would be odd to say, "The general manager should have traded away two players who stand to be 10-year regulars for them, just in case Kershaw got hurt." The Dodgers have enough players to win already.

So, why do the Dodgers pick up guys who can't stick with the last-place Chicago Cubs, like Darwin Barney, or who are expendable to to last-place Minnesota Twins, like Kevin Correia? Because those clubs are searching for front-line guys, which these guys aren't, and the Dodgers don't need them for that. The Dodgers can use them more suitably.

Perhaps the Correia deal is a bit of a head-scratcher. Corriea has built a 12-year Major League career on not being very good. He has spent the entire time just on the right side of the line between being the proverbial "replacement" player and being just enough better than a replacement player to get a two-year contract for $10 million from the Twins entering his age 32 season in 2013. Bad teams need starting pitchers, too, and Corrieia has taken his turn with a lot of those clubs. He pitched six years for the San Francisco Giants before they were good, then he pitched a couple of years for the San Diego Padres, then he pitched two years for the Pittsburgh Pirates before they were good, then he was on to the Twins.

Baseball-reference.com gives Correia's lifetime WAR as 5.3 in 12 seasons, just barely better than a 4A guy would have done. But that's better than a lot of clubs have to fill the role the Dodgers have for Correia, which, they say, is to pitch long relief and take an occasional start. That's what a mid-rotation guy on a poor club becomes when he joins a good one. It certainly would be more cost-effective to just run a 4A guy out there, but the Dodgers don't have those guys lying around, so they're going for the little edge here, and it doesn't cost them a lot

The Cubs gave Barney three years to claim their second base position because he is such a spectacular fielder. But he was a poor hitter in his rookie season of 2011 (.666 OPS) and he has been progressively worse each year. If Barney could hit just a little bit, he would be a highly valuable player, an every day player who could draw a deal from a good team when he goes free agent in 2017. His range at second base is right there with anyone, and he makes some of the most remarkable throws of any player on any baseball field. But he hits so poorly that it's questionable if he will still be in the big leagues when 2017 arrives.

Could be, though, that Barney has a long future as a spare infielder who can at least catch it and throw it when the regular second baseman or shortstop goes down, something on the order of John McDonald, who now plays for the Angels. With so many more hitters than the Cubs, the Dodgers could even get away with Barney as the every day second baseman or shortstop for at least a while because he adds uncommonly to the infield defense. He's not going to move Dee Gordon off second base, of course, but Hanley Ramirez and his impending free agency project a hole at shortstop after this season.

It happens that Seager, the organization's top prospect, is playing shortstop every day at Chattanooga of the Southern League, a 20-year-old in a league where the average position player is on the high side of 24. He's batting .343 in 70 at-bats there after hitting .352 in 327 at-bats for Rancho Cucamonga of the California League, where the average player is nearly 23. So, Seager appears to be coming fast, and he might be the big league shortstop at the start of next season.

But if he isn't ready, Barney could be a nice one-year place holder so Seager can have a little more time for development. As much as Ramirez hits, Barney is so superior defensively that it might not even be a net loss – and that's a comfortable statement even though Barney has played very little shortstop in the Major Leagues. Maybe Gordon moves back to shortstop and Barney takes second base for a year. They could break Seager in gently, if they need to, and still be covered.

The Dodgers don't need any of these new acquisitions to be stars. They've got stars. They need complementary players to fill little gaps for this year and, maybe, beyond. They haven't made headlines. But they have made their club better.

Editor's note: All numbers in this piece are from Baseball-Reference.com.

Is the extra pitcher worth it?

Like the Oakland Athletics, the Detroit Tigers added a premium pitcher to a deep rotation at the non-waiver trading deadline and took a player out of their daily lineup to do it. Again, the questions about the Athletics' deal apply to the Tigers, even if Austin Jackson isn't as big of a loss as Yoenis Cespedes.

The Detroit Tigers made a deep starting rotation deeper by acquiring David Price from the Tampa Bay Rays. Is it worthwhile to deepen a deep starting rotation for the postseason (Keith Allison [original], UCinternational [crop]/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)?


By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The non-waiver trading deadline passed last week with quite a lot of smoke. Where there's smoke, there ought to be fire, but it remains to be seen if any of these deals will wind up so hot.

We've already discussed the deadline deal between the Oakland Athletics and the Boston Red Sox, in which left-handed pitcher Jon Lester and left fielder Yoenis Cespedes switched coasts. We don't believe it will add up as a plus for the Athletics, who added the pitcher at the expense of the mid-lineup hitter.

Another deal in much the same spirit occurred between three clubs – the Detroit Tigers, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Seattle Mariners. At the All-Star break, the Rays were nine games down in a division without a great club, which led us to believe the Rays would ride it out and take a crack at winning. But Thursday's three-wheeled deal perhaps was more than the Rays could refuse. They gave up left-hander David Price, their top pitcher, who wound up with the Detroit Tigers. The Rays brought in middle infielder Nick Franklin from the Mariners, while lefty Drew Smyly and 18-year-old Class A shortstop Willy Adames came in from Detroit. The Mariners bagged center fielder Austin Jackson from the Tigers to complete the trade.

Again, we scratch our heads. This time, it's about the Tigers, though not so much as we scratched them over Oakland's acquisition of Lester. The Tigers wound up giving quite a lot for Price – a good starting pitcher, their center fielder and a good prospect. But the Tigers already had depth in their starting rotation, more than any other club in the American League, including Oakland, and it is puzzling that they would pay the price they paid to add depth to a deep rotation when the postseason specifically doesn't reward depth in the starting rotation. The Tigers already had Justin Verlander (9-9, 4.79, 0.4 WAR), Max Scherzer (13-3, 3.27, 4.2), Rick Porcello (12-5, 3.24, 3.7) and Anibal Sanchez (7-5, 3.57, 2.4), along with Smyly (6-9, 3.93, 1.8). They have replaced Smyly with Price (11-8, 3.11, 2.7) at the immediate cost of Jackson (.730 OPS, 1.8 WAR).

A fourth consecutive American League Central title for the Tigers is all but a fait accompli. They entered Monday's games with a five-game lead on the Kansas City Royals and no one seriously believes the second-place club here can mount a challenge unless the Tigers were to entirely collapse. In any case, the Tigers are too far along to be selling out for division championships. They're trying to make that step they haven't made since 1984. They're trying to win the World Series.

So, this trade, for the Tigers, is about the playoffs. And the same kind of analysis that we applied to the Athletics applies to the Tigers. We can figure now that the front three pitchers for the Tigers during the postseason will be Price, Verlander and Scherzer. The fourth man will be Porcello. In that case, Sanchez becomes a non-entity during the postseason.

Again, we raise the question: Is it worth it for the Tigers to add Price to their postseason rotation if it means 1) Fewer starts for a fine pitcher in Porcello; 2) No starts for a fine pitcher in Sanchez, and; 3) Jackson has to be replaced in the every day lineup by someone who isn't as good?

Price is a terrific pitcher. No one can or should dispute that. The question isn't whether Price is worth having, but whether he's worth having for a club that already had enough good starters already, and whether it's worth Price to take starts away from, for example, Porcello or Sanchez. And the Tigers also have deprived themselves of a decent center fielder whose offense and defense will not be easily replaced.

We've been rather hammering on this lately. We argued on July 31 that the Dodgers should not make this sort of trade, we argued on Aug. 1 that the Athletics should not have made that sort of trade, and we argue here, today, that the Tigers should not have made this sort of trade.

We have here two instances of the wrong kind of club making the wrong kind of trade. To credit Oakland general manager Billy Beane and Detroit general manager David Dombrowski, at least they traded for top quality pitchers, unlike so many general managers we've seen at trade deadline. The criticism here is that both clubs already had enough quality and depth in their rotations to prosper in the postseason, so they ended up paying heavily for entities they do not need, and to the detriment of their offensive and defensive platoons.

The good news for the Tigers is that Price is under contract for 2015, so, unlike Oakland's deal for Lester, this one isn't a rental. The Tigers have Price in 2015, and they can build their 2015 club with that in mind.

As always, baseball is unpredictable. Among the game's pleasures is that it invites us to make predictions about the future, then, in time, tells us if our predictions are on target.

In the weeks leading to the trade deadline, for example, it required absolutely no ingenuity to find commentaries bemoaning that expanded playoffs and recent changes to draft compensation rules were killing this non-waiver trading period. In July, it turned out, five players were traded right as or after they were named All-Stars in their leagues – Cespedes, Price, Lester, Jeff Samardzija (from the Chicago Cubs to Oakland) and Huston Street (from the San Diego Padres to the Angels).

Lots of interesting changes here. We're predicting that the Angels will emerge from the clearing smoke better than anyone involved in an All-Star trade, that the Tigers didn't help themselves and that the Athletics hurt themselves. Perhaps the next few months will prove us wrong. Or not.

Red Sox wrecking Rays destiny

The Boston Red Sox don't need any help scoring runs, but the Tampa Bay Rays have been helping them, anyway. The Rays entered their American League Division Series with the Red Sox on a roll, but now they're down, 2-0, and they appear to be flat-out doomed.

David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox might be the most dangerous hitter in the game, and the Tampa Bay Rays know it (Toasterb/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Winning three straight elimination games to get there, The Tampa Bay Rays entered their American League Division Series (ALDS) with the Boston Red Sox appearing as the proverbial Team of Destiny. 

After losing the opener, 12-2, Friday in Fenway Park, they looked a little different.

And after losing Saturday’s Game 2, 7-4, they look finished.

The look changed on Friday, when the Rays played an absolutely terrible Game 1. Checking the box score, they made no errors. Watching the game, they made errors every place you looked. 

Through the course of the season, a team's fortunes will wax and wane, and there's always a temptation to view the streaking team as the one that's going all the way, until that team loses, at which point it becomes tempting to say that team is doomed.

The Rays shifted temptation all week. Up to Friday, they faced down elimination like champions, which, of course, they aren't, since they entered as a wildcard. But when the Rays had to win in Toronto last Sunday, they did, then they had to win in Texas last Monday, and they did, then they had to win in Cleveland last Wednesday, and they did. 

So, the Rays didn't have to win on Friday, and they didn't, and they didn't have to win on Saturday, and they didn't. But now they have to win three in a row against the Red Sox, and it just looks like too much.

The Red Sox hit up and down their lineup and consistently make opponents pay for their misplays. The Rays gave them plenty to work with in Game 1.

Those looking for turning points are putting goat horns on Rays right fielder Wil Myers, who misplayed a warning track fly ball by David Ortiz into a double that opened up a five-run fifth inning for the Red Sox. In truth, the whole team was awful. Myers was merely the first guy who was awful, and the line behind him grew quickly.

Baseball, being a game of discrete, isolable events, has a unique concept of teamwork among the team sports that players describe as picking each other up. One hears players talk about it all the time -- "I botched this play, but so-and-so picked me up." When someone makes a bad play, someone else comes along and makes a good play, which redresses the sequence of events to keep the bad play from damaging the team.

The Rays didn't have it working in Friday's fifth inning. After the misplay by Myers, pitcher Matt Moore didn't cover first base energetically enough, then left fielder Sean Rodriguez misplayed a ball off the Big Green Monster, then catcher Jose Lobaton didn't catch strike three. The Rays had many chances to put a lid on that inning, and they just didn't do it. So, don't pin the five-run inning on Myers. It was a team effort.

In particular, it's hard to watch Moore allow the Myers misplay to blow up into a big inning by making a misplay of his own. For a pitcher who was 17-4 this year, Moore wasn't much of a horse in this one. That's a situation in which the pitcher absolutely has to pick his guy up. Maybe, in a dysfunctional office, someone might say, "It's fine for me to screw this up now, because all the blame will go to the guy who made the mistake that started all this." But there's no place for it on a championship baseball team, so when Moore didn't run all the way through the bag on Scott Drew's ground ball to first baseman James Loney, one had to wonder what was in store for the Rays for the rest of the game.

In fact, a run scored on that play, giving the Red Sox a 3-2 lead, and the Red Sox scored nine more runs to polish off a 12-2 win.

The Rays came back with their ace, David Price, in Game 2, but the Red Sox came back with Ortiz, who hit two homers in a 7-4 Boston win. Of course, the Red Sox offense doesn't end with Ortiz, and it never has. Everyone in the Boston lineup notched a hit in each of the first two games, except for Mike Napoli in Game 2.

The series moves back to the Tampa Bay Monday for Game 3, an elimination scenario for the Rays. Playing to stay alive has been the tonic for the Rays for the last week. But their ailment now is more serious than it has been. They have to do it against the Red Sox, the American League East champions -- three straight times.

Puig needs to cool it, or he'll cool down the Dodgers

Yasiel Puig, 22, is a wonder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have become powerful contenders through his energetic style of play. As the competition becomes more serious, though, it becomes a question of whether his erratic style of play will derail the Dodgers' championship bid.

Yasiel Puig is hitting .352 for the Los Angeles Dodgers and winning games dramatically. But some of his dramas are potentially damaging (Ron Reiring/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The saga of Yasiel Puig brings up a lot of the old dualities concerning the relationship between genius and reality.

Of course, "genius" isn't typically the word to describe dominance on the baseball field, and anyone who finds himself constantly groaning about Puig's reckless throws and base running misadventures will agree that genius is no part of his game. Nor is Puig's expression of the game especially original. It's just endlessly dramatic, perpetually thrilling and consistently inspiring. Maddening, too. But we'll take it.

By now, everyone knows that Puig showed up at Marlins Park in Miami Tuesday 35 minutes before stretching, a little bit after the second bus arrived from the hotel. Traditionally, players who don't take either of the buses from the hotel, whether because they have other transport or because they stay at other locations, are required to be at the yard before the second bus arrives. Puig has a home in Miami and reportedly was caught in traffic. As Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told reporters, it happens.

So, Mattingly fined Puig the usual nominal amount, which is usually about $500, and benched the young star, which he was going to do, anyway. Puig was on an zero-for-11 and hadn't taken a day off since Aug. 4. Of course, his tardy appearance was huge news.

So, then, was his at-bat in the eighth inning, when he homered off the bench against the Miami Marlins to break a 4-4 tie and trigger a 6-4 Dodgers victory.

Moments like that are the upside with Puig, who was batting .352 with a .979 OPS. Puig was batting .353 against left-handers and .351 against right-handers with 12 homers in 261 at-bats -- seven of his homers coming in the sixth inning or later.

But it's only because Puig has such a flair for the dramatic that the Dodgers, or any other team, would put up with his warts, which include a tendency to show up veteran teammates on the field, throwing to the wrong base so he can show off his arm and running into outs as he attempts to show off his speed. Which is to say nothing of his harrowing confrontations with umpires.

Puig is untamed, flouting the conventions of the game, only to make the game his own in the end. Of course, that works against teams like the Philadelphia Phillies and the Miami Marlins, who have been losing all year long. In the playoffs, though, when all the teams you play are good, weaknesses not only are exposed, but they are exploited. When the playoffs come around, the Dodgers will lose a lot more from Puig's vices than they will gain from his virtues. The game is based in failure, and the fear remains that Puig will bring more failure on himself than he or his team can overcome.

Thus, the pundits have offered us two schools of thought about Yasiel Puig. One, which might be represented by MLB.com's Richard Justice, says leave the kid alone and let him be himself. Perhaps it is because of Puig's exuberance that the Dodgers have done as well as they have (50-20) since he came to the big leagues. The other, which might be represented by Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times, says the Dodgers need to harness Puig and get him under control before he kills them in the postseason.

The inclination here is to agree with Plaschke. Puig will never reach his potential, nor will the Dodgers reach theirs, so long as they can't bring his game under control. In particular, these confrontations with umpires really need to stop. If he starts going badly, then calls start going against him, and if he's still missing cut-off men and running into outs, he's not going to be a very good player, at all.

The Dodgers do need Matt Kemp back, but not to remove Puig from the lineup. Indeed, as recent outings against David Price, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels have reminded us, a good left-handed starting pitcher is the best antidote to the Dodgers. The Dodgers will need Puig and Kemp in the lineup simultaneously to handle left-handed pitching.

But if Puig doesn't learn, or isn't taught, how to handle his emotions and harness his game, there's a real good chance that it won't end well. For all the promise and excitement that Puig has brought to the Dodgers with his upside, his downside can still keep them from realizing that promise and excitement in their fullest manifestations.