S.I.: Freedman: With Manny coming back, red-hot Pierre forced to grin and bear it

“Stats are stats” handle going once, twice…

But if you’ve got a beating heart and any modicum of pride in what you do for a living, it’s hard to believe that Pierre is not at all perturbed that he’s heading back to the dugout despite putting up fantastic numbers in Ramirez’s absence. Pierre declined numerous requests to comment for this story, and tries to deflect as much attention from himself as he can in interviews with beat writers. But ask his best friend, Los Angeles Angels third baseman Chone Figgins, and it isn’t hard to read through the lines.

“I do feel badly for him because he’s my best friend and he’s not getting to play [regularly],” said Figgins, who came up with Pierre in the Colorado Rockies farm system. “But we’ve seen what happened with the Manny Ramirez situation and the fact that he did do something that was illegal. In retrospect, [the Dodgers] should see that a player that hasn’t done things like that is putting up numbers that are natural. It should be shown that we deserve more respect than what we get.”

...“Now he’s a so-called bench player, which isn’t accurate,” said Figgins. “Bench players don’t get a five-year contract or get 200 hits over the last couple years, [only] behind Ichiro [Suzuki]. Stats are stats.”