Just about a week ago, Dalton Rushing addressed his public disagreement with Shohei Ohtani, which led to a tense moment on the mound. Now, Rushing has once again found himself at the center of another heated on-field incident. Following a close play at home plate on Monday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Colorado Rockies briefly cleared their benches. However, the Dodgers’ manager had a different take on the exchange between Cole Carrigg and Rushing.

“I think that what happened is Carrigg said something aloud, not directed at Dalton. [And] Dalton thought something was directed at him,” manager Dave Roberts explained after the game. “We cleared the air. Basically, a big misunderstanding.”

Carrigg’s two-run double helped the Rockies make it 6-6 in the 9th and force extra innings. The Colorado CF then scored the go-ahead run in the 10th. During the play, he was trying to get to the plate and had hardly any room left to reach the bag as the umpire and Rushing were almost blocking his path. Moreover, the Dodgers’ catcher knelt at the last moment to glove the ball, and many thought it was an attempt to block the runner. 

Luckily for the Rockies, Carrigg was marked safe, and they went 7-6. But Carrigg was visibly upset, and he said something while moving towards the dugout. Dalton Rushing immediately responded, thinking it was meant for him. Both teams gradually came out of their dugouts, but the teammates handled it before things escalated. And as it turned out, Carrigg’s comments were actually meant for his teammate Mickey Moniak.

The 24-year-old even addressed the same after the game.

“I was just a little frustrated,” Carrigg said. “I wasn’t mad at the way Rushing was covering the plate or whatever. For me, that’s just baseball. But I collided with him and then hit the umpire, too. I felt like, I can’t be getting hit by both guys, you know? The one at the plate’s fine, but the umpire’s gotta give me a little room to slide, so I was frustrated at that. I turned and said something to Mickey [Moniak] on deck. I wasn’t looking at either one, then he got all upset. But, you know, it’s just baseball.”

Notably, the LA catcher had a communication breakdown with Shohei Ohtani in June, which led to the two-way superstar’s discontent as he started calling the pitches himself. 

Even earlier this season in April, the San Francisco Giants fans accused Rushing of throwing an explicit at Jung Hoo Lee after a slide to home plate stemmed an injury scare. 

That’s why Roberts said that the young catcher sometimes “sees red” in the heat of the moment, after the Ohtani incident. 

“I think it was just the competitive nature of the game,” Rushing said on Monday. “You’re making a play on the ball, take it the wrong way, and I didn’t mean any harm by the tag or the way I reacted to the ball. Made sure [Carrigg] knew that, and I told him I was just reacting to the baseball.”

And the Rockies manager, Warren Schaeffer, also downplayed the whole thing, saying it was “no big deal.” He basically reinforced the fact that neither of the clubs saw it as a lasting issue. 

Dalton Rushing ultimately delivered an RBI single in the 11th to seal an 8-7 victory for the Dodgers. His biggest contribution in the game came from his bat and not from brief confrontations like in the past.