Yasiel Puig suffers setback; Dodgers start over again on his rehab

Yasiel Puig and the Dodgers don’t like the idea of rebooting his rehab, but that’s essentially where they’re at with their young star.

The Dodgers thought Puig was close to returning from his hamstring injury when they sent him on a rehab assignment last week, but he aggravated the injury running to first in a game Friday for Class A Rancho Cucamonga.

Puig had an MRI exam Monday that Don Mattingly said did not show any new tear, but the manager admitted the outfielder had suffered a setback.

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“I don’t know about all the way over, but obviously it wasn’t necessarily good news,” Mattingly said. “But I don’t really think it’s starting all the way over.”

However, there will be no running for Puig for a while, the Dodgers opting to give the always tricky hamstring injury some additional time to heal. For the moment, he is basically shut down.

“I guess in a sense,” Mattingly said. “You know, they’re always doing something, so you’re never really shut down. I’m sure they’ll let it calm down a couple of days and then kind of get back on the program, as far as building toward doing bike, doing water, doing bases.”

Puig injured the hamstring in mid-April, took a few games off and then tried to play with it, only for it to flare again. He’s been on the disabled list since April 26 and has appeared in only 11 of the Dodgers’ first 31 games.

Meanwhile, outfielder Chris Heisey was returned to triple-A Oklahoma City on Tuesday so the Dodgers could officially activate right-hander Mike Bolsinger to start against the Marlins and ex-Dodger Dan Haren.

Follow Steve Dilbeck on Twitter @SteveDilbeck