Followers of the New York Mets probably represent the fan base that has the biggest bone to pick with Dodgers starter Trevor Bauer, and that story line will be one that undoubtedly carries into the 2021 season and beyond.
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But the Mariners fan base might be climbing up the list of his biggest adversaries. It's not because he dominated their lineup or anything; on the contrary, Seattle walloped three home runs off of him in a single inning in Monday's spring training game.
Instead, it was his explanation of what happened that may have sparked some ire throughout the Seattle Mariners community.
"I got what I wanted out of it (the outing)," Bauer told reporters (via Daniel Kramer of MLB.com). "The fifth inning, there really wasn’t any thought of sequencing or whatever. I was just throwing pitches. That’s not a really good mind frame to be in when you’re trying to get guys out.
"But I was just finishing off the night, trying to get my pitch count up.”
He wasn't completely saying that he wasn't trying... but it didn't exactly sound like he wanted to admit that he was. It's kind of like when you lost a race at elementary school recess and then tried to completely nullify the outcome of said race because, well, if you were trying to win and were in the right frame of mind, then you would have.
That's the approach that Mariners skipper Scott Servais took when commenting on Bauer's response on Tuesday, and the sarcasm wasn't hard to identify. 20 years ago, Servais may have needed to deal with pitchers' antics as a catcher for multiple clubs. Now, he showed just how much patience he had.
“Certainly, Bauer was on top of his game early,” Servais said (via Kramer). “I just wanted everybody to know our guys weren’t trying the first four innings. We decided to try in the fifth inning last night, and it worked out. Our guys started trying. I know he had said maybe he wasn’t trying in the fifth, but our guys were trying in the fifth. We just didn’t take it seriously the first three or four innings.”
Exactly — had the Mariners been giving it their all early in the contest and not just, you know, working on different stances, trying out some swing alterations, etc., then they would have easily crushed three home runs in every inning!
Servais' sarcastic assault on Bauer didn't stop there, prompted by a reporter who brought up Bauer's earlier outings in which he pitched with one eye closed for parts of the day. In one such instance, he hit Mariners batter Ty France with one eye apparently closed, though he later said that he was just trying to focus his eye with "CO2 exhalation," (via Kramer).
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“No, our guys were hitting with one eye shut for the first four innings," Servais said. "We were also trying to breathe through our eyelids as we are focusing on different things that will help us throughout the years. I just want to make [sure] everybody understood they weren’t trying the first four innings.”
Point taken, coach. We can't wait to see if/how Bauer responds to this one.
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