The crowd of 37,544 sounded like a packed house on Tuesday as Yasiel Puig gave Dodger fans a lot to cheer about. He must not have been satisfied with two singles in four at bats in his debut on Monday, so he crushed two home runs for 5 RBIs on Tuesday.
The fans who missed the game in the stadium took to Twitter, trending "Puig" and "Viva Puig" nationwide.
He led off the first inning with a double, his first extra base hit of his career, but was stranded on groundouts and a line-drive from Hanley Ramirez.
Many have pointed out that Puig could have scored on Gonzalez's ground out. The infield was playing back, and he was about half way down the line but turned back on a play that he most likely could have scored on.
It is a small base-running error that he will fix over time, much like his throwing error that allowed a run to score in the fourth.
Puig came charging in hard on a fly ball, but had to stop abruptly in order to properly play the bounce. Kyle Blanks was well on his way to third and instead of throwing to the cut-off man, he launched a rocket to third base that tangled Juan Uribe up with the runner.
The ball bounced past Uribe allowing the run to score. While Puig was charged with the error, Ted Lilly was not in proper position to back up the throw, so the run scoring is not all Puig's fault.
In post-game interviews Don Mattingly said he expects blunders like the ones he made on base and with that throw, but he does not want them to get into his head. "One of the main things we want him to know is just keep your head up, keep going. There's going to be some growing pains now and then, but I'd say the other side of that is really, really good" he said.
Mattingly is right, the other side of Puig is really, really good.
In the fifth, with the Dodgers down 5-2, he hit a 439-foot game-tying three-run blast to left-center field. Dodger stadium erupted and beckoned for him to come out for a curtain call.
In the sixth, Puig hit another home run. This time he went opposite-field for a two-run jack making the score 9-6 Dodgers.
He was summonsed by fans for a second curtain call.
Mattingly compared his game Tuesday to the way Puig was hitting in Spring Training.
In two career games Puig is hitting .625/.625/.1.500 with two home runs and five RBIs. He is the first Dodger to have a multi-home run game in his first two major league games.
Saying that Yasiel Puig is electrifying is now an understatement. He has come out in his first two games and crushed the sky-high expectations that preceded him.
It is getting harder to keep a level head with him, but fans will get to see plenty of Puig during this current 10-game homestead.
