Yasiel Puig held out of Dodgers lineup with left hamstring tightness

LOS ANGELES -- One night after limping on the field, Yasiel Puig is out of the Dodgers lineup with tightness in his left hamstring injury in the second game of a three-game series against the Mariners at Dodger Stadium.

Puig was limping during Monday night's win, though he stayed in the game. He felt better on Tuesday but was held out of the lineup as a precaution.

"He actually felt great today and wanted to play, but we wanted to be a little bit cautious," manager Don Mattingly said. "The fact that he wanted to play was a good sign for us."

Mattingly said Puig is available to pinch hit if needed on Tuesday, though ideally he would try to avoid using him.

Andre Ethier gets the start in right field in place of Puig, batting sixth. Carl Crawford, starting in left field, bats second. It is the third start of the year for Ethier, who is 3-for-11 (.273), including 3-for-5 with a triple and a double in his last two games.

Yasmani Grandal is back in the lineup at catcher for the Dodgers.

If there is any sort of pattern to be drawn so far in figuring out how the Dodgers will split catching duties, which is admittedly a bit skewed given the early April off days, so far A.J. Ellis has started with either Clayton Kershaw on the mound for the Dodgers or a left-hander on the mound for the opponent.

But with James Paxton on Monday the first left-hander the Dodgers have faced this season, that isn't much of a pattern to rely on, other than working it out that Grandal catches roughly two out of three games.

As expected, Juan Uribe is also back for the Dodgers after missing two games with left hamstring tightness. The injury occurred in what was going to be a scheduled off day for Uribe on Saturday in Arizona, so this is his first start since Friday.

Mattingly said two good games by Alex Guerrero isn't going to change the team's plans at third base any time soon.

"We all know that a lot of what we do is defend, and Alex has done a really good job. But before the game last night they were handing out awards [for fielding], and Juan won that. He had a really good year for us last year, this is not just a guy to toss aside," Mattingly said. "A couple of games are not going to change what we're going to do."

Something that likely won't matter tonight but is still fun is that David Huff is a switch-hitter. He has all of nine career plate appearances, with eight coming as a left-handed batter, though he's just 0-for-6 with four strikeouts and two sacrifice bunts from that side. As a right-handed batter, Huff is 1-for-1 with a single that came against Jorge De La Rosa of the Rockies last April 21 at Coors Field.

The Mariners went with a few changes in their lineup, going back to Rickie Weeks in left field and Austin Jackson in center field, both right-handed batters. In addition, Willie Bloomquist starts at first base, the 21st time he has started there — and first this season — in his 14-year career.