Trevor Bauer and his drone are ready for the Blue Jays in Game 3
Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer was supposed to start Game 2 of the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, but on Friday we learned that he wasn’t going to be able to. Bauer had cut his pinky finger while repairing a drone, and he’d be starting Game 3 on Monday instead.
Of course, everyone had a million questions. He cut his finger? Repairing a drone? Wait, a DRONE? Seriously? An actual DRONE?! And he was repairing it?!?! What? Why? How!?!
All good and important questions. And on Sunday, a workout day for both Cleveland and Toronto, Bauer finally answered those questions for the press and all the very interested (and probably confused) people who wanted to understand more about this accident. And he brought the very drone he was repairing.
So how exactly did the injury happen? When Bauer plugged the drone into the wall, one of the propellers malfunctioned. It started spinning at full speed, and his right pinky finger was in the way. He grabbed a cab to the emergency room, but wasn’t able to tell anyone how many stitches he got.
So I got a number of stitches, I don’t know exactly how many. I wasn’t interested in really counting or watching or anything like that.
Can you blame him? Watching seems like it would be pretty gross.
The drone that Bauer brought with him, the one that ate his pinky finger, is pretty impressive looking. Bauer actually built the entire drone himself, and he talked about the process.
I custom designed this entire frame, I designed it on a CAD program, 3-D printed some of the parts with my 3-D printer, put it together by myself, assembled it myself, the whole process. Like I said, it’s kind of my escape, and I’ve been doing it for three or four years, two years, three years, actually. And this is the first time anything like this has happened.
That’s really cool. But what might be less cool to some people is Bauer’s answer when he was asked about his favorite “Star Wars” movie. Get ready.
My favorite one? I don’t know, “Phantom Menace” probably, just because I think Darth Maul is one of the coolest villains, double-sided lightsaber, and his theme song. I like that one for whatever reason. But I don’t have a least favorite one. They’re all 1A, 1B, stuff like that.
At least he didn’t mention Jar Jar Binks. That would have really gotten people angry.
Bauer’s remarks weren’t limited to drone-related topics. He had nothing but compliments for Josh Tomlin, who started in his place in Game 2, and Andrew Miller, the reliever who has been absolutely mowing down hitters with the greatest of ease. He called both of them “impressive,” praised Tomlin’s ability to adjust his routine, and was in awe of Miller’s strikeout accomplishments.
As far as pitching, Bauer said that his stitched-up pinky isn’t affecting him at all, and he’s ready for Monday’s Game 3.
But I’ve thrown with it a couple different days. It doesn’t affect anything as far as my grips. I don’t even use my pinky on any of the pitches I throw, it just kind of hangs out over there. I don’t anticipate it being an issue at all.
While Bauer will be on the mound for Cleveland, Marcus Stroman will be handling the starting pitching duties for the Blue Jays. Cleveland is up 2-0 in the series, and so Toronto will need to come out swinging to make sure this series doesn’t get away from them, because a 3-0 hole is a hard one to climb out of. (As it so happens, Jose Bautista has already done a little verbal swinging himself.) You can catch the game at 8 p.m. ET on TBS and Sportsnet.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
