Nico Hoerner admits regret for not confronting Dalton Rushing over offensive remarks

The 28-year-old second baseman said on the Spiegel and Holmes Show that he was “pretty taken aback” by what happened and wished he had acted differently.

“I wish that I had confronted him… I was pretty taken aback… At the end of the day, you just wanna have your teammates’ back,” he said (via Talkin’ Baseball).

However, Hoerner also made clear he was not suggesting he should have escalated the situation physically. His regret was more about failing to defend his teammate in real time.

The second baseman added that he was still in the middle of an at-bat, which explains why his first reaction was surprise rather than confrontation.

Dalton Rushing’s strong start is now sharing space with controversy

The Amaya incident has become part of a wider pattern around Rushing, who has attracted attention across several recent Dodgers series.

He previously questioned whether the Colorado Rockies were doing something “fishy”, before Dave Roberts dismissed that idea and pointed instead to poor Dodgers pitch execution.

Rushing was also involved in tension with the San Francisco Giants after a play at the plate involving Jung Hoo Lee, then was later hit by Logan Webb and made a hard slide into Willy Adames.