An ‘anxious’ Yasiel Puig spinning his wheels for Dodgers

10:25 PM ET

LOS ANGELES — The selfish Yasiel Puig is out, replaced this year by what appears to be the anxious Yasiel Puig.

It is a change, just not the one anybody was looking for.

The dynamic Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder continues to search for an approach that fits his high-upside skill set. The search remains ongoing.

Oft criticized for being a me-first player, is Puig now trying too hard to please everybody?

Yasiel Puig has been prone to chasing breaking balls out of the strike zone, resulting in a combined .248 batting average in the past two seasons. Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

This offseason the front office worked with Puig, and the 25-year-old appeared to approach the season with a new attitude. After saying this winter that he didn’t know how to be a good teammate, he worked on some of his shortcomings.

Puig has been a charmer in the three months since spring training started, backed by an often hilarious social media presence. But his free-and-easy way on the internet is not translating at the plate, where Puig looks so uptight that pitchers appear to be toying with him.

Plate discipline has been a disaster for Puig, who has chased 38.4 percent of pitches out of the strike zone, according to ESPN Stats & Info. The past two seasons, he had chased 27.6 percent of pitches out of the zone.

“I think all hitters go through struggles; this might be a little more accentuated or whatever,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And when hitters struggle, I think they’re going out of the strike zone. I think we’ve seen in three years that he’s been hot and he’s been cold. But, yeah, I think he can be better and …

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