Trevor Bauer blasts pace-of-play rules, 'cheating pitchers' after allowing game-winning HR
On Saturday, Ian Kennedy and Trever Bauer battled in a pitchers duel at frigid Progressive Field in Cleveland that went to Kennedy’s Kansas City Royals in a 1-0 win over the Indians.
Temperatures hovered around freezing during the game that was decided off the bat of Royals first baseman Lucas Duda with a rocket over the right-field wall. Duda’s blast came courtesy of a Bauer fast ball that was left high and over the plate at the top of the seventh inning.
It was a frustrating loss for Cleveland and Bauer, who pitched an otherwise stellar outing, allowing three hits and two walks with seven strikeouts in eight innings.
But Bauer wasn’t content chalking it up as a tough loss after the game. No, no. He had beef, and a lot of it on multiple fronts.
His first gripe in a post-game rant was at the expense MLB’s new pace-of-play rules which cut the time between innings from 2 minutes and 25 seconds to 2:05.
”First pitch of the inning, coming out, I tried to get loose, but with the new (commissioner) Rob Manfred time, we have only a certain amount of time between innings, it’s hard to get loose sometimes, especially in conditions like that. It’s not safe, but, whatever.
“I was like, ‘Look, I’ll take the fine if I need to, but I’m not going to put myself at risk and I’m not going to put the team at risk of me having exactly what happened happen,'” Bauer said of being rushed to pitch by an umpire. “Throw a pitch that you’re not ready to compete on because you’re still trying to get loose, and it gets hit over the fence and we lose because of it – not because of it, but it was a contributing factor.”
After calling out Manfred and the umpire, Bauer shifted his attention to other pitchers and his claim that some take unethical measures to deal with throwing a baseball in cold weather.
“Since I don’t cheat like a lot of guys and put stuff on my hand, just grab the ball and throw it, my pitches were somewhat inconsistent,” said Bauer, who allowed only three hits in eight innings. “It’s like a cue ball. It slips out of your hand. But, it is what it is. It’s worse for the hitters. I was looking forward to it. I thought I pitched pretty well overall.”
Saturday wasn’t the first time this year an outspoken Bauer made headlines with his words. During spring training, he blasted MLB for taking a “disingenuous” stance on encouraging players to speak on social and political issues.
Just had a meeting encouraging all players to take a stance and be leaders politically. Here’s my stance. I find it disingenuous that @mlb commissioners office would encourage this when they’ve specifically tried to censor me for sharing my opinion on the matter. #RiseUp
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) March 8, 2018
It’s only April. It seems unlikely this is the last we’ll hear from Bauer this season.
MLB video from Yahoo Sports
More from Yahoo Sports:
• Watch: Phil Mickelson whiffed
• Shohei Ohtani homers in third straight game
• LeBron James’ missed free throw squashed Cleveland’s 30-point comeback bid
• Cardinals pitcher may have overtaken Aroldis Chapman as MLB’s hardest thrower
