We could call the 2014 Major League Baseball as the “Year of Puig” because the Cuban baseball player is really ripping the ball in the best baseball in the world. But that term has no such pretensions, because if we speak of the “Year of Puig” we refer to the first anniversary of his debut in the majors, which he met just today, June 3.
That Monday, and 365 days ago, the millionaire roster of the Los Angeles Dodgers received in their land of Chavez Ravine the San Diego Padres, a duel for attempting to leave the terrible hole that they were in, with only 24 wins and 32 losses!, well distant from the top in the National League´s West Division.
The talent of Hanley Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez and Andre Ethier was not enough to fill the gaps by injury of Matt Kemp, Carl Crawford and Juan Uribe, so they needed someone capable of revolutionizing the whole atmosphere generated in doubtful Dodgers fans .
Then Yasiel Puig came, a chunky black man with a perennial broad smile, the same dreamer boy, back in his native Palmira, running shirtless and with broken shoes in the nineties, challenging the survival of a very humble family.
And he didn’t come through the back door, not as a pinch hitter, or as a pinch runner, not as a substitute fielder for the late innings. No. He appeared as leadoff hitter and starting outfielder jobs he molded after his own way to consolidate himself in the best ball of the universe.
In his debut he hit a rocket to center and then another to the right, caught all the balls hit back to him, and in the epilogue of the game, when Kyle Blanks popped up to his field and Chris Denorfia did not calculate that he had separate much of the first base Puig´s shot froze him to send the entire Dodger Stadium on their feet.
After that game, Puig was officially baptized as a phenomenon. It was the classic cyclone, Novato and Player of the Month for June in the National League, natural bomber with 36 games of more than one hit, seven with at least two RBIs all season. That fever spread to all the Californian team, unstoppable to the leadership of his division and broken only in the discussion of NL scepter against the St. Louis Cardinals.
That defeat was a bitter pill for Puig, whose winning mentality goes beyond any conceivable limit. That’s my memory of him, as a boy of 18, in the Latin American Stadium . There were all shouting to him, provoked him and responded with lines, but Cienfuegos could hardly do with Industriales, and that frustrated him.
Years later, invariably the picture changed. It was not easy, he tried seven dangerous attempts to leave Cuba, another defiant journey in Mexico before reaching the “promised land ” where he smiled again, on the diamond , with a bat , a glove and a ball.
After that he has grown, with all its eccentricities in and off the field. Not the late arrivals to training or racing at sports car hundreds of miles per hour have prevented his rapid promotion to the elite baseball, to the point that his manager, the star Don Mattingly, considers him the best right fielder in the majors.
In terms of skill, with the glove he is doing much better, his movements are becoming longer and his attitude to face the shot to the bases is becoming more consistent, as all scouts point out. A strong and accurate arm is not enough; you also have to know where you need to throw the ball.
His progress is so remarkable that in nearly one hundred plays this season has not made any errors, without forgetting that collects a dozen spectacular plays, of those that lift the audiences, those that motivate fans to go to the park just to see the show of a player.
With the bat, the numbers also show a consolidation, especially for his approach at the plate. He makes more of at bats, his percent of swings to ball outside the area has decreased, which speaks clearly of his improved pitch selection, to the point that in 50 games he has almost the same amount of balks than in his entire rookie season.
From that detail, everything flows more easily in his appearances, because he dominates the game with an amazing, challenging naturalness, intimidating any opposite. And this is only after one year in baseball … safely, the best is yet to come.
Photo: Jon SooHoo
