How amusing it can be, an easy story line spoiled. The latest twist in the remarkable baseball saga of Yasiel Puig had already been assigned, this one a little gassy and overinflated, about a gifted but an unpredictable young player who had begun to unravel, slumping, making minor mistakes on the field and off, accumulating to the point that Tuesday in Miami, the rookie earned himself a fine and a seat on the bench. You could hear the grouchy huzzahs, hundreds of miles away. Baseball was baseball, after all, and its fusty codes needed to be respected. As thrilling as Puig has been—and over the last two months he'd been as thrilling as anyone in the game—it was time for him to get a day off, grow up and think.

And then they grabbed him off the bench and put him back in the game. And later he hit a go-ahead home run. And the Los Angeles Dodgers won, once more.

Story line undone. Perfect—and so, so Yasiel Puig.

Let's step back a moment. A certain Puig backlash was inevitable, was it not? This is how it goes when fame accelerates fast, so sudden and bright it almost feels jarring. The Ascension & The Crackup is the routine curve of modern celebrity, and if you are not convinced, there are at least a half-dozen shiny magazines for sale in the supermarket—right next to the Tic Tacs—dedicated to the blood sport of stardom gone wrong.

Puig plays in Los Angeles, a town where this cruel trajectory is as common as the middle-aged men in bad designer jeans. But the blowback surrounding him felt a tad silly and premature. By now you know Puig's deal: the Cuban defector who stormed into the majors on June 3, since then playing a massive role in transforming the Dodgers from bad expensive furniture into a contender; entering Wednesday night's game, L.A. was 50-20 since his arrival. He does not appear to be on the verge of an E!-style Hollywood crackup. He is not racking up a seven-figure bill at the Chateau Marmont (at least I'm pretty sure) or walking down the median of Wilshire Boulevard in a silk bathrobe and slippers (pretty sure here too).