Bloody finger forces Trevor Bauer to leave ALCS Game 4 but doesn’t stop him from trolling Toronto fans

Cleveland Indians starter Trevor Bauer threw only 21 pitches during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night.

He had to leave the game in the first inning. Because of this:

Yes, that is blood — and a lot of it — dripping from the pinky finger on Bauer’s right hand, which is the one he uses to pitch. He sliced the digit working on a drone last week and missed his scheduled Game 2 start because of the injury. After getting stitches, Bauer hoped he was good to go for Game 3.

Turns out he wasn’t.

Four batters into the game, Bauer’s finger was doing all that gruesome stuff you saw above. Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons signaled to plate umpire Brian Gorman, and Bauer was removed from the game under a Major League Baseball rule that prohibits pitchers from having a foreign substance on their hands.

“I’m a competitor, man. I want to be out there,” Bauer said. “I wouldn’t have gone out there if I didn’t want to be out there. It was my turn to pitch, and I expected myself to go deep in the ballgame, like I always do.”

He added: “Sometimes the circumstances aren’t in your favor.”

Luckily for Bauer, the rest of his fingers were fully functional. So after six relief pitchers combined to help the Indians claim a 4-2 victory and move to within one game of the World Series, Bauer was able to remind the Toronto fans where the series stands:

And he also used them to tweet up a storm later that night. Here are just a few samples — as you might notice, he wasn’t too happy with the reception he got from Blue Jay fans:

And on and on it went.

Then there was this tweet:

Which resulted in this, something we can all be thankful for:

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii