{"id":686678,"date":"2026-04-30T12:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/686678\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T12:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T12:10:21","slug":"cubs-nico-hoerner-says-he-wishes-he-had-confronted-dodgers-c-dalton-rushing-for-calling-teammate-a-fat-f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/686678\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs’ Nico Hoerner says he wishes he had confronted Dodgers C Dalton Rushing for calling teammate a ‘fat f***’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dalton Rushing<\/a> does not appear to be in MLB to make friends.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often that you see the backup catcher of the defending champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> in this case, take up the resident villain role. Yet Rushing seems to have antagonized an opponent in three straight series.<\/p>\n

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On Saturday, it was the Chicago Cubs<\/a>. The incident in question came in the third inning with Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner<\/a> at bat, when a pitch in the dirt from Roki Sasaki<\/a> allowed Cubs backup catcher Miguel Amaya<\/a> to take second base.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of Amaya beating Rushing\u2019s throw to second, the cameras caught Rushing saying \u2026 something that led to a surprised reaction from Hoerner. Some lip-readers at home interpreted Rushing as calling Amaya a \u201cfat f***.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers won that game 12-4.<\/p>\n

All of that hung in the air until Tuesday, when Hoerner went on the Spiegel & Holmes Show and confirmed that Rushing indeed called Amaya a \u201cfat f***.\u201d<\/p>\n

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His reaction:<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish that I had confronted him a little more directly, to be honest. I was pretty taken aback and in the middle of my at-bat. It was just kind of a strange thing to experience. So yeah, I felt a little weird about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not saying I should have like tackled the guy or anything. But yeah, just a little taken aback. Just at the end of the day, you just want to have your teammates\u2019 backs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that any of this is important, but we\u2019re just going to note that Rushing is listed at 6-foot, 220 pounds, and Amaya is listed at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds.<\/p>\n

For those keeping score at home, here\u2019s what has happened with Rushing in the Dodgers\u2019 previous two series:<\/p>\n

All of that occurred in the span of a week.<\/p>\n

Who is Dalton Rushing?<\/p>\n

Rushing was the Dodgers\u2019 first player taken in the 2022 MLB Draft, with the 40th overall pick in the second round. He was soon making top-100 prospect lists and would\u2019ve likely gotten run as a starting catcher a couple of years ago in most organizations.<\/p>\n

However, Rushing is a member of the Dodgers, who have one of the best catchers in the sport in Will Smith<\/a>. So Rushing has worked only as a backup since his MLB debut in May 2025.<\/p>\n

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He didn\u2019t impress much last season, slashing only .204\/.258\/.324 with 4 homers and 58 strikeouts in 155 plate appearances, and he had only one trip to the plate in the 2025 playoffs. This season has been different, as Rushing has posted a .348\/.423\/.848 line with seven homers \u2014 second on the Dodgers \u2014 in only 52 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

That success has seen him get more playing time recently, with starts at catcher in five of the Dodgers\u2019 past 11 games. He has also been the designated hitter in the two games Shohei Ohtani<\/a> has operated as a pitcher only, meaning the team likes Rushing\u2019s bat the most off the bench.<\/p>\n

Obviously, we\u2019re a long way from confirming Rushing as a star in the making after a good April, but he is certainly getting his name out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dalton Rushing does not appear to be in MLB to make friends. It\u2019s not often that you see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2399],"tags":[29437,5,138,24,4245,52,161,10900,39,375,728,4,33,110,66,468,1535,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-686678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-backup-catcher","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-colorado-rockies","14":"tag-cubs","15":"tag-dalton-rushing","16":"tag-dodgers","17":"tag-jung-hoo-lee","18":"tag-miguel-amaya","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-nico-hoerner","21":"tag-roki-sasaki","22":"tag-san-francisco-giants","23":"tag-shohei-ohtani","24":"tag-will-smith","25":"tag-willy-adames"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116493590359173806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}