He comes out of nowhere.

One moment, Yasiel Puig hits a soft ground ball up the middle that looks for all the world like a scratch single, the next he's careening headfirst into second base.

The TV camera from behind home plate misses the instant, as he's rounding first base, when he notices Mets shortstop Omar Quintanilla has deflected the ball just enough to slow it down, and he decides to go for two. Instead, we see a very surprised Juan Lagares, the Mets' center fielder, scrambling to make a play on the ball and a triumphant Puig standing on second base and pointing his index fingers to the sky.

The Dodgers and Mets are tied 4-4 in the 12th inning and Puig suddenly represents the winning run.

"When he does something like that," Dodgers first-base coach Davey Lopes said, "that's outstanding. That's something you can't teach. He did that all on his own. Nine out of 10 guys wouldn't try that."

The Dodgers have one rule for Puig on the basepaths: The light is always green unless they tell him otherwise. Puig didn't run through a stop sign against the Mets. There wasn't time enough for Lopes to put one up.

"And the 'Wild Horse' is in position to win it," Dodgers announcer Vin Scully exclaimed. A couple of pitches later, Adrian Gonzalez drove him home.

"I really believe," Lopes said. "He thinks he can do anything."

COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS

The Dodgers are 67-33 since Puig's call-up on June 3. His energy, swagger and star power have been exactly what the Dodgers needed, and what baseball was hungry for.

But, of course, he can't do everything, and along with the thrilling hustle doubles and laser throws from deep right field to third base have come some overzealous baserunning gaffes and reckless overthrows, including the misplay of two more balls on Wednesday night in Arizona.

The motor inside the kid never turns off. For good and bad.

Puig goes all out, it seems, on every play. Harry How/Getty Images

He is 22 years old with 63 career minor league games and 95 major league games under his belt. Two years ago, he was in Cuba and out of baseball completely after being suspended for trying to defect. One year ago, he was in Class A Rancho Cucamonga (Calif.), learning that you don't go up into the stands and say hello to a friend during the middle of the game. To say he's still learning is an understatement.

The Dodgers have hired private security for him, assigned him personal translators and asked former Latin American players like Manny Mota and Eddie Oropesa to mentor him.

He's not an orchid, though. He's a rock star, oozing with charisma on and off the field. These days, part-owner Magic Johnson isn't the face of the new-look Dodgers -- Puig is. And baseball should be thanking the heavens for Puig -- an exuberant five-tool player with a flair for the dramatic, a guy capable of winning back so many of the fans who've tuned the game out in the aftermath of the steroids era. Instead, it's having trouble embracing him. There are grumblings about his lack of fundamentals, bristling at his style and swagger.

"Yeah, Puig might come off as cocky to some people," Dodgers teammate Matt Kemp said. "But why not think you're one of the best players in the league? Every great player has a swag to their game. That's what makes them great. If he's one of your teammates, you like the way he plays."

It's not so much that he doesn't know all the unwritten rules that govern the game. It's that he succeeds in spite of them.

The purist is left with two questions: Does he want to learn them? Does he need to?

The Dodgers have but one question: Can they trust him come playoff time?

"You don't want to break his spirit," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "I love the way he plays. But you don't want it to end up costing us later."

FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE

Three years ago, Kemp heard a lot of the same criticisms that Puig hears now. He made too many little mistakes, his effort seemed inconsistent, his mood affected his play, his social life put him in the eye of the tabloids. Mostly, though, his sin was not living up to his enormous potential.

"When I first got to the big leagues, I made a lot of the same mistakes he's making," Kemp said. "But you learn from them. As long as he learns from them and doesn't keep repeating them over and over, he's going to be one of the best players in the game for a long time."

Kemp has been injured for so much of this season, you almost forget he's there sometimes. That, too, is the power of Puig. His energy and production have made up for what Kemp is capable of giving the team when he's healthy. Kemp holds no grudges, though. Watching Puig on a daily basis is one of the things that keeps him going through all the injuries and frustration.

"I love the way he plays the game," Kemp said. "That's the only way to play the game. It's a kid's game. You should be having fun."

I try to ask a question, but Kemp's fired up. He wants this to be heard, in this clubhouse and around baseball. If he wasn't hurt, he'd be sticking up for Puig every day.

"He might come off as whatever people say he is, like he doesn't play the game the right way. But he goes out there and plays hard every day," Kemp said.

"You can't hate on these young kids. There's always going to be those guys who've been in the game a long time and when they see these young kids coming up, they kind of get a little jealous. But I love it. I love watching guys like Mike [Trout] and Bryce [Harper] and Puig."

Lopes is one of the people who helped Kemp realize his potential in 2011, when he finished second in the National League MVP voting. Like Puig, Kemp had unquestioned talent. It just had to be unlocked, and nurtured in the right way.

Don Mattingly has tremendous respect for his young star's talent. Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

"We're not trying to tame [Puig], we've got to refine him," Lopes said. "There's nothing wrong with the way he plays. He has to recognize that these guys are as good as he is. You can get away with stuff in A-ball that you can't get away with here.

"But some guys play with a flair. You don't change that. We in baseball sometimes do that. We try to make everyone fundamentally correct. But some guys can do things uncharacteristically and get the job done. I got no problem with that."

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Like most Cuban defectors, Puig is reluctant to talk about how he left home. Bits and pieces have come out. Rumors have swirled, but details are not well known. There could be consequences for Puig, his friends and family members who still live in Cuba (his brother is still in college there), or for his parents and sister, whom Puig helped to emigrate to the United States about six months ago.

Even if he wanted to tell his story, someone -- likely his agent, Jaime Torres -- would stop him.

"If you want to ask me about how he got here," Torres said, "it will be a very short conversation."

I tell Torres I'm more interested in what would have happened if Puig hadn't come here.

"Well he'd been suspended -- whether it be for trying to defect or thinking about trying to defect, I'm not sure -- and once you're suspended, you have no other choice but to try and find a way off the island," Torres said.

If Puig hadn't left, Torres explained, he never would have been able to play baseball on anything more than a sandlot again. Forget playing for the Cuban national team. Forget even playing for $17 a month for his hometown team, the Elephantes of Cienfuegos.

"I would have been fixing computers," Puig said.

It hurts Torres to even think of such a reality.

"I can't tell you how many Puigs we have lost," Torres said. "And when I say we, I mean baseball fans. I'm an attorney and I represent players, but first of all I'm a baseball fan. And the list of players that we never had the opportunity see play at the big league level is sad. I'm talking about players that would have been stars, Hall of Famers, and we never got to see them. Omar Linares, Antonio Pacheco, Luis Casanova, I could go on and on."

As we spoke during a Dodgers game in Miami against the Marlins, a group of Cuban baseball legends stood nearby. They had been granted permission to visit the U.S. in order to take part in an exhibition game commemorating the 50th anniversary of one of the Cuban league's most storied franchises -- Industriales. Rey Anglada was a second baseman for Industriales for 10 years. In his prime, he was one of the best players in Cuba. Torres said it's not out of the question to compare him to Yankees superstar second baseman Robinson Cano. But at the age of 29, Anglada was wrongfully accused in a gambling scandal and kicked out of baseball. Twenty years later he was cleared of all wrongdoing and later became the manager of Industriales.

"It was tough, but life goes on," Anglada said.

Anglada said he had an opportunity to leave Cuba once, too. The St. Louis Cardinals would have offered him a contract. But he says he never seriously considered it. Cuba is his home. His family is too important to him.

Those who do leave do so with a hole in their hearts. Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman said he's been able to bring his parents over to America, but his 4-year-old daughter remains in Cuba. Puig left without ever knowing if he'd see his parents or siblings again.

There's a difference between those who stay and those who go. I'm not sure anyone can explain it, though. It's too big of a decision to judge. You either decide to leave everything and everyone behind and see where your talent takes you, or you don't. Once you leave, though, you have to trust in that talent. The decision cannot be reversed. Failure is not an option. Out of necessity, that talent becomes everything to you. Your future, your identity, your life. It is all you have left.

And then one day, if you're Yasiel Puig, after that talent has earned you a $42 million contract and unparalleled success in the major leagues, people start telling you to ignore what that talent makes you think you can do and ask you to trust them and their approach to the game?

TEACHING MOMENTS

Mattingly gets it.

"I don't think any of us can really walk in his shoes," Mattingly said. "He came from a communist country. I don't think any of us really knows what that's like and what goes on there. How he grew up or what happened to him."

Mattingly gets it, and yet he's still got a baseball team to manage. A team that has just won the NL West and is aiming for the franchise's first World Series title since 1988.