Chattanooga Lookouts right fielder Yasiel Puig walks to the dugout after striking out on his first at-bat during their season opener.The Chattanooga Lookouts endured bullpen struggles, assembled a 10-game winning streak and had a productive performer in center fielder Joc Pederson during a busy first half in the Southern League season.
Overshadowing it all was Yasiel Puig.
Puig was mesmerizing for the Lookouts, hitting .313 with eight home runs and 37 RBIs in 40 games before leaving AT&T Field for the majors on June 2. The 22-year-old Cuban defector is hitting .479 in his first 13 games with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he hit .517 with them in 27 spring-training games.
The Dodgers assigned the right fielder to Chattanooga a week before the start of the season, which led to a challenging dynamic for first-year manager Jody Reed.
“He wasn’t happy showing up in Chattanooga, and that led to a difficult initiation period of a week to 10 days,” Reed said. “He didn’t want to be here, and you kind of had to let him work his way through that. He’s a young player who’s clearly very excitable, and we had to let him work through it.