Dodgers Star Urges Dalton Rushing to Be More Careful

The Dodgers' 25-year-old catcher inspired constructive criticism from a veteran teammate.

Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing (68) slides into San Francisco Giants shortstop Willy Adames (2) trying to make the double play with second baseman Luis Arraez (1) during the sixth inning at Oracle Park on April 23, 2026. | Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

When Freddie Freeman offered Kyle Tucker advice earlier this year, when they first met as Los Angeles Dodgers teammates on FaceTime, Freeman kept it simple: Don't do "anything stupid."

Around baseball, a lot of people are offering the same advice to another Dodger: 25-year-old backup catcher Dalton Rushing.

Rushing has drawn criticism from San Francisco to Denver to Chicago for, in essence, talking trash. The fervor of complaints escalated enough to prompt multiple deep dives into Rushing's psychological profile.

The latest comes via The Athletic which, via Freeman, informs us that Rushing has a tendency to "black out on a baseball field."

“[Rushing] cares so much about wanting to be good, so you can’t fault someone for that," Freeman said. "That would just be taking away something from who Dalton Rushing is. So for me, I’m not gonna ever tell him not to do that. I mean, maybe watch what you’re saying on cameras, you know, and stuff like that.

“You just try and throw up some bumpers in the bowling lane.”

As one of the youngest players on the Dodgers (only Roki Sasaki, Edgardo Henriquez and Alex Freeland are younger than the 25-year-old Rushing), it would hardly be a surprise if a veteran teammate called out Rushing publicly or privately.

So far, the Dodgers seem publicly content to let Rushing be himself.

“Seventy, eighty percent of the players out there are saying things, but they’re not getting caught on camera often,” Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas told The Athletic. “We don’t want to really make a big deal out of him, because that’s not the guy that we’re seeing every single day inside the locker room.

“If that would be the case, I think we would have a problem. But I don’t think what’s going on and him going viral out there – it’s looking like every series he’s doing something – is the kind of guy that he is with us inside.”

The harshest criticism on the record so far came from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who said that “he’s bringing stuff onto himself he doesn’t need to bring on. There’s a responsibility to not be reckless because everything is captured.”

Rushing's first full season in MLB is not yet two months old. Time will reveal whether he takes the criticisms to heart.

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