Jung Hoo Lee was sent home in the bottom of the sixth inning Tuesday night and was out by several steps at the plate, a play that turned a routine moment in dodgers vs san francisco giants into a flashpoint. As Lee slid awkwardly to avoid Dalton Rushing’s tag, he appeared to injure himself again, and the Giants later replaced him defensively with Jerar Encarnacion.
Rushing was shown walking back to the Dodgers’ dugout after the tag-out, then briefly turned to look at Lee and shrugged slightly. He appeared to say, “[Expletive] him,” a clip that spread quickly and drew sharp reactions from Giants fans on social media. According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, Rushing denied saying it and said he wishes Lee nothing but the best.
Lee’s return to the lineup Wednesday night made the impact of the play even more immediate. He had already been playing through a quad injury he suffered earlier in Washington, D.C., and the slide at home appeared to aggravate it. Rushing, meanwhile, was not in Los Angeles’ lineup Wednesday night, leaving the club without the rookie who had become a target for Giants fans even before this sequence. He had recently drawn attention for complaining about the Colorado Rockies and, as the article notes, essentially accusing them of cheating a few days earlier.
That helps explain why the reaction came so fast. Giants fans already disliked Rushing because he is a Dodgers rookie and has hit an absurd number of home runs since being called up this season, so the moment at home plate landed with extra force. What happened in one inning became bigger than one collision: Lee was hurt again, Rushing was in the middle of it, and both teams had to carry the aftermath into Wednesday night.
The next question is whether Lee can keep playing through the injury without losing more time, because the Giants have already had to manage his quad once and Tuesday night made the problem more complicated.