Trevor Bauer Cut His Finger on a Drone, Get Over It

Trevor Bauer’s freak drone injury put the Cleveland Indians in a tough spot in Game Three of the ALCS. But blaming Bauer for having hobbies outside the game is the wrong reaction.

As many of you know, Trevor Bauer started game 3 of the ALCS, but only lasted 19 pitches before he had to leave due to severe bleeding coming from the pinky finger on his throwing hand. The reason that Bauer’s finger looked like a scene from a Tarantino movie was because he sliced his finger open on his drone, a cut that required him to get 10 stitches.

Bauer managed to get two outs in the first inning, but that would be as far as he would go, as John Gibbons came out of the Blue Jays dugout and had the umpires reenact a scene from Monsters Inc. (Disclaimer: I can understand why Gibbons did what he did, as it is against the rules for him to pitch with a cut on his pitching hand. That being said, I think the situation in itself was funny).

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Twitter naturally turned into a mess after this, as “Trevor Bauer” was the top trend for most of the game, and sadly most of those tweets were negative. Some people seemed to  believe that Bauer put his drones above his pitching, or that he doesn’t value the postseason or winning it all. Those people would be wrong.

Bauer – like most people – has hobbies. He isn’t some robot who sits around in an empty room all day in between starts. Bauer is a baseball player, but more importantly, he’s a human being. Some people scrapbook in their spare time, some people ride motorcycles, other people might do fantasy football. Bauer works on drones.

While this might not be the prototypical hobby, Bauer isn’t the prototypical person. The 25 year-old majored in engineering during his time at UCLA, so it’s only natural that he does things in his spare time that pertain to that (i.e drones).

He admitted that what happened to him was a freak accident, and that makes perfect sense, because accidents happen. Sammy Sosa once hurt himself sneezing for God’s sake. I don’t think there would be this much backlash towards Bauer if he had twisted his ankle walking his dog.

Maybe I’m being too empathetic towards Bauer. I’ve liked him ever since the Indians acquired him, and I still like him. Maybe it’s because I see bits of myself in him. He is an intelligent (sometimes stubborn), abstract individual who beats to his own drum and doesn’t care what people think, traits that I believe can be used to describe me as well. Maybe I’d be thinking about this differently if the Indians had lost game three (Eight relievers combined to throw 8.1 innings of two-run ball in the Tribe’s 4-2 victory).

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Regardless, Bauer shouldn’t be chastised for doing something that he enjoys. I think that people on social media should instead be focused on his condition, not how the injury occurred. This applies doubly for Indians fans, who should be hoping that Bauer will be 100% for the ever more likely berth in the World Series. Maybe I’m just being stubborn (told you that trait fits me).