Dodgers should place Yasiel Puig on the DL, but they won’t

Yasiel Puig is in a bad slump and he got the night off on Friday. It’s clear he’s hurting and could use a little rest, yet here we are again with the Dodgers refusing to place a clearly injured player on the disabled list.

Unlike with Hanley Ramirez, there are viable replacements to fill in for Puig. Joc Pederson is coming up Monday, so why not just send Puig to the DL and let Pederson get an early start on his MLB career?

Daniel did a great breakdown of Puig’s diminishing over-the-fence power, and it isn’t because he isn’t good at hitting baseballs. The Dodgers are going to need Puig healthy for October, so any rest he could get leading up to it would be most beneficial.

Of course, they still have Andre Ethier (he has not fallen into the Ozzie Smith hole from “Homer at the Bat”), and he started on Friday night. So, it’s understandable why they haven’t yet recalled Pederson. But that doesn’t change the fact Puig should be disabled so he can get the rest he so obviously needs. This would have been a lot easier before last night, seeing as Ramirez had the most Ramirez night: a towering home run and an injury. And Ethier just isn’t hitting at all, so the loss of Puig’s production will sting in the short-term, but it could hurt the Dodgers even more in the long-term (well, just through the playoffs).

Since Aug. 4, Puig has a .190/.289/.215 triple slash with two doubles. It isn’t just him not seeing the ball well, it’s his hip acting up. He’s been playing through it for a few months, and it’s finally catching up to him.

The Dodgers aren’t going to place Puig on the DL. They’re stubborn like that. And I guess Sept. 1 is only a couple days away, but I’m just hoping Puig is as close to 100 percent as possible. Even if they don’t DL him, Ethier and Pederson should get the lion’s share of time in center field until Puig is healthy.