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Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer lasted just 0.2 innings in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series before his right pinkie laceration forced him to exit, according to MLB.com’s Richard Justice.

Dan Otero replaced Bauer in the first inning.

It’s not as if Bauer’s failure to get out of the first inning was a major surprise. He suffered the cut Friday, which didn’t leave a lot of time for the pinkie to heal before he took the mound Monday night.

Indians manager Terry Francona was prepared for the 25-year-old to make a hasty departure. According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, Corey Kluber will likely start Game 4 instead of Game 5, which would’ve been the strategy if Bauer had pitched well into Game 3.

The bigger question is whether Bauer’s injury will jeopardize his ability to pitch for the rest of the series. If he’s unavailable, Cleveland would have to rely on Kluber, Josh Tomlin, Ryan Merritt and potentially Mike Clevinger. Bauer’s injury also placed more pressure on the bullpen, which has already put in its fair share of work in the ALCS.

Francona and Co. have done an excellent job compensating for injuries to starters Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar, but the manager may need to get even more creative while working around Bauer’s pinkie troubles.

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The Cleveland Indians put together one of the greatest examples possible of a team win Monday night.

Starting pitcher Trevor Bauer’s bloody finger caused him to come out in the first inning, and the Indians used seven pitchers to again stifle the Toronto Blue Jays in a 4-2 win in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

Cleveland leads the series 3-0 and can clinch its first World Series appearance since 1997 with a win Tuesday.

Mike Napoli was the offensive star for the Indians, either driving in or scoring three of their four runs. He doubled home Carlos Santana in the first inning, hit a solo home run in the fourth and scored on Jose Ramirez’s single in a two-run sixth that broke a 2-2 tie. Cleveland took the lead for good that inning on a solo home by Jason Kipnis.

Bauer, who sliced open his right pinky last week while working on a drone, began to bleed profusely against the fourth batter in the bottom of the first and had to leave after two-thirds of an inning. He was followed by six relievers—the last being Andrew Miller, who struck out three over the final 1 1/3 innings to earn the save. Bryan Shaw picked up the win.

Toronto got a solo homer from Michael Saunders in the second and an RBI groundout from Ryan Goins in the sixth after Ezequiel Carrera tripled. The Blue Jays have scored only three runs in the series.

Scroll down for all of our updates, analysis, statistics, photos, tweets and anything else worth noting from the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.

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Major League Baseball has reportedly reached an agreement with Under Armour for the apparel company to be the league’s exclusive uniform provider beginning in 2020, according to Terry Lefton of SportsBusiness Daily. ESPN.com’s Darren Rovell confirmed the report.

As part of the deal, Fanatics will be the official retailer of MLB jerseys. Fanatics will also provide on-field apparel for players.

This is the first time Under Armour has held exclusive uniform rights for a major American sports league. The company is the apparel provider for various colleges, including the Maryland Terrapins, Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Auburn Tigers. Rovell noted Under Armour produces workout apparel for the NFL Scouting Combine as well.

A number of top athletes have deals with Under Armour, including Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper and Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw.

Under Armour’s contract with MLB is a sign of its growth and desire to continue building its profile in the United States. The company made a push last summer to be the NBA’s uniform provider starting in 2017-18 but lost out to Nike.

With Under Armour taking over for Majestic Athletic, which has produced MLB uniforms since 2005, many will wonder if players’ duds will get a new look.

When Nike replaced Reebok as the NFL’s apparel provider in 2012, it declined to make significant alterations to most uniforms, with the exception of the Seattle Seahawks’.

Over the years, though, Under Armour has gained attention for its unique designs and could opt for a similar strategy with MLB.

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In the American League, the Cleveland Indians appear ready to rock their way to the World Series for the first time in nearly two decades. In the National League, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs seem prepared for a toss-up classic.

The Indians have raced out to a 2-0 lead over the Toronto Blue Jays, winning a pair of low-scoring nail-biters. Toronto’s high-powered offense has put up just one run over the first 18 innings; Cleveland had to be more than thrilled to see Josh Tomlin go 5.2 innings while giving up only a single run in Game 2.

Tomlin was not originally the scheduled starter but had his day moved up when Trevor Bauer suffered a non-baseball injury. Bauer cut his pinkie finger while working on a custom-built drone at his house Thursday. 

“Obviously you feel bad,” Bauer said, per Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal:

I want to go out and be able to make my start and help the team any way that I can. I was really looking forward to pitching on Saturday. Just one of those things, freak accident you can’t really control. And try to maintain a positive attitude the whole time. Literally I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to pitch at some point in the series. I got pretty lucky.

Bauer and the Indians say he should be fine to go in Game 3. The Blue Jays will hand the ball to Marcus Stroman, who gave up two runs in six innings of work in his Wild Card Game start against the Baltimore Orioles. He did not pitch in the ALDS.

The Jays pitching staff has done its job so far. Marco Estrada gave up just two runs over a complete-game loss in Game 1, while J.A. Happ only gave up a pair of runs over his five innings of work in Game 2. Having failed to produce a run in Game 2 despite racking up seven hits, the Toronto offense has to save the series.

Jays star Jose Bautista put some of the onus onto the umpires.

“All you gotta do is look at video and count how many times [Indians pitchers have] thrown pitches over the heart of the plate,” Bautista said, per Lewis. “It hasn’t been many. They’ve been able to do that because of the circumstances that I’m not trying to talk about because I can’t. That’s for you guys to do but you guys don’t really want to talk about that either.”

The Jays appear closer than ever to missing out on a World Series berth in the ALCS for the second straight year. Bautista‘s comments likely spell out an increasing frustration from the clubhouse more than an actual indictment of the umpires.

The NLCS is much harder to predict. Clayton Kershaw once again threw the Dodgers on his back in Game 2, going seven shutout innings to outduel Kyle Kendricks in a 1-0 win. Kershaw‘s heroics flips home-field advantage to Los Angeles, which will put Rich Hill on the bump for Game 3.

Acquired in a deadline deal with the Oakland Athletics, Hill’s time as a Dodger hasn‘t gone as expected. He was limited throughout the second half of the season due to recurring blisters on his pitching hand, and the Washington Nationals lit him up for four runs in 4.1 innings in his first NLDS start. He lasted all of 2.2 innings in his second before being pulled for a relief committee in Game 5.

The Cubs will use Jake Arrieta, who has become a near-automatic win over the last few years. Arrieta‘s 2016 was his worst full season as a Cub, and he posted a 3.69 ERA after the All-Star break. But he threw six solid innings in his lone NLDS start against the San Francisco Giants—though that turned out to be Chicago’s only loss of the series.

“We can’t win all of them,” Javy Baez said, per Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. “We know we’re the best. We’ve got the best team out there.”

The Cubs remain the favorites to not only win the NL but the whole thing. They’re the most complete team in baseball, equipped with a great pitching staff, an elite young lineup and arguably the best manager in the sport. If it weren’t for that nonexistent curse talk—curses do not exist, people—the idea of favoring any other team would be laughable.

And it still is. Baseball’s postseason tends to be wonky, so sometimes the best overall team doesn’t win. But these Cubs have been the class of MLB since the outset, and one loss against the best pitcher in the game doesn’t make them any less of a favorite. 

World Series prediction: Cubs over Indians in 6 games

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Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez confirmed Sunday that he refused to stay at Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower with teammates during a May series against the Cubs.

“I didn’t stay there,” Gonzalez said, per JP Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group. “I had my reasons.”

The Dodgers had long used the Donald Trump-owned hotel as their headquarters during Chicago road trips. They did not stay at the Trump Tower during their recent National League Championship Series trip to Chicago because the location required a non-refundable deposit.

Gonzalez refused to elucidate on the reasoning behind his decision.

“We’re here to play baseball, not talk politics,” he said.

Gonzalez was born in San Diego but raised in Mexico. He has played for the Mexican national team in the World Baseball Classic and has worked to build the game in his family’s native country. As Hoornstra noted, Gonzalez has donated to multiple Mexican charities and helped rebuild a Tijuana youth facility where he honed his game as a child.

Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has made a series of disparaging remarks about Mexicans during his campaign. He has consistently proposed the construction of a wall on the Mexican-American border aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the country. Trump has also accused Mexican immigrants of bringing drugs to the U.S. and of rape, among other crimes.

A recent NBC News poll showed Trump trails Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 50 points among Latino voters.

Follow Tyler Conway (@jtylerconway) on Twitter.

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The Cleveland Indians find themselves just two wins away from reaching the World Series, but their incredible postseason run has not come without controversy.

Well, “controversy.”

Back in the American League Division Series, the Boston Red Sox hinted that they believed the Indians were stealing signs on their way to a sweep. Cleveland responded to that accusation with this awesome tweet:

Toronto Blue Jays star Jose Bautista apparently didn’t learn from that situation—because he set himself up to get trolled.

Cleveland defended its home field by winning the first two games of the American League Championship Series. As the series headed north, Bautista told Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star there were “circumstances” the Blue Jays have had to deal with to start the series.

Per the Indians, those “circumstances” were dominant Cleveland pitchers:

But wait…there’s more!

Whether you like the Tribe or not, there is no denying they have the best Twitter account in all of baseball. Anyone who decides to run their mouth better be prepared to deal with the consequences—because the Indians will clap black.

[Cleveland Indians]

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MLB free agency will provide the majority of the rumors and speculation once the postseason concludes, but there are nonetheless a few trade rumors circulating in October.  

Below, we’ll break down two of the big rumors making the rounds.

Andrew McCutchen

Andrew McCutchen has been the face of the Pittsburgh Pirates renaissance in recent years, but there is buzz that the team could deal the superstar center fielder.

Rob Biertempfel of the Tribune-Review reported the following earlier in October: “Now there is a growing sense among industry insiders that the team will try to deal McCutchen before he reaches free agency in either one or two years. General manager Neal Huntington likely will quietly shop the five-time All-Star during the offseason, if only to gauge the level of interest.”

McCutchen‘s 2016 was disappointing, to say the least. He hit just .256 with 24 home runs, 79 RBI, 81 runs, six stolen bases and a .766 OPS. His batting average, steals and OPS were all career lows.

That may hurt his value, with Charlie Wilmoth of MLBTradeRumors.com noting “the team could point to his fine performance down the stretch (he batted .284/.381/.471 from Aug. 1 through season’s end) as evidence that the old Cutch is back, although it’s not clear how convincing that line of argument will be.”

Wilmoth also noted the Pirates could choose to accept a low offer, “figuring it’s better to deal a player who might continue to decline before more poor performances and/or the ticking clock of free agency further depress his value.”

For the Pirates, the decision will likely come down to weighing the difference between what they feel McCutchen can offer in the future and what trade offers come down the pike. If the Pirates still feel McCutchen can be a superstar and 2016 was just an aberration—he just turned 30 years old, after all—they probably will hold off on dealing him.

But if they suspect his best days are behind him and receive a solid offer for his services, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the team move on this winter or before next season’s trade deadline. The Pirates seem unlikely to be sentimental when it comes to McCutchen, especially with younger—and cheaper—prospects in the pipeline.

Wade Davis

The Kansas City Royals are receiving phone calls about pitcher Wade Davis and could be inclined to trade him, according to Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball:

The Royals have built their championship teams around strong defense and a special bullpen, but they seem to be willing to consider a trade for Davis at a time they are mandated to cut their payroll from a high of $144 million.

They could also consider a trade for one of their two highest-paid players – Alex Gordon or Ian Kennedy – but one competing GM opined that the Royals would likely have to offset some of those contracts.

Davis, it seems, is the most likely of the trio to be moved.

He had a strong 2016 season, finishing 2-1 with a 1.87 ERA, a 1.13 WHIP, 27 saves and 47 strikeouts in 43.1 innings pitched.

The free-agent market will be rife with star closers, from Aroldis Chapman to Kenley Jansen and Mark Melancon. But once that market settles, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a team desperate to upgrade the position call the Royals.

The aforementioned closers will come at astronomical costs, and Davis, as Heyman noted, might ultimately be a bargain. On the other hand, that may make it difficult for the Royals to pull the trigger on dealing him, especially given his excellent 2016.

It’s going to be an interesting offseason for the Royals.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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Are the Cleveland Indians ready to play the role of destiny’s darlings?

It seems that way as the American League playoffs unfold. They have picked up two consecutive wins over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series after sweeping the Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series.

Cleveland’s win in Game 1 of the ALCS was not a surprise, as the Indians had home-field advantage and ace Corey Kluber on the mound. However, when they were able to come up with their second straight victory with Josh Tomlin pitching Saturday, that was surprising.

Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki and Jose Bautista gave the Blue Jays a formidable lineup against Tomlin, who had a 13-9 record with a 4.40 ERA while allowing 36 home runs in the regular season.

However, the Blue Jays couldn’t figure him out in Game 2, and he allowed just one run in 5.2 innings before Cleveland manager Terry Francona went to his bullpen.

That has been the key factor for the Indians in their first five postseason games. Their relief pitchers, led by sensational left-hander Andrew Miller, have dominated against the Red Sox and Blue Jays.

Miller pitched two scoreless innings apiece in the first two games of the ALCS. He struck out five of the six hitters he faced in Game 2 before closer Cody Allen took care of the ninth inning without any issue. Allen retired the side in order, striking out two hitters.

The lesson for Cleveland’s postseason opponents is to get a lead off the Indians starters before Francona goes to the bullpen.

The Blue Jays will try to make that happen Monday at Rogers Centre in Toronto:

The Blue Jays hitters again appear to have a favorable matchup as Trevor Bauer takes the mound against Marcus Stroman in Game 3. Bauer was 12-8 during the regular season, but he had a 4.26 ERA and 1.31 WHIP. 

He also suffered a laceration of his right pinkie while trying to repair a drone, forcing Francona to make Tomlin his Game 2 starter while pushing Bauer back to Game 3.

Sportsnet shared Francona’s thoughts on the situation:

The Blue Jays will send out Stroman, who will have the huge responsibility of trying to hold down the Cleveland attack while hoping the Blue Jays hitters figure out how to get to Bauer.

Stroman was 9-10 with a 4.37 ERA and 1.29 WHIP in the regular season, but he limited the Baltimore Orioles to two runs in six innings on the mound in Toronto’s Wild Card Game victory.

Toronto catcher Russell Martin thinks the Blue Jays’ past postseason success can help them come back from their deficit. The team rebounded from a 2-0 deficit against the Texas Rangers to win the 2015 ALDS and then climbed out of a 2-0 hole to extend the ALCS to six games before bowing out to the World Series champion Kansas City Royals.

“Because we’re a good team,” Martin said, per Scott Mitchell of the Toronto Sun. “Just because somebody gets ahead or whatever, I think, we were down 0-2 against Texas last year, and we ended up finding a way to win.”

Nobody in the Cleveland dugout is taking anything for granted.

“Continue to be ourselves,” shortstop Francisco Lindor said, per Richard Justice of MLB.com. “We got to continue to play the game the right way, respect our opponent. Just because we’re up 2-0 doesn’t mean nothing. We have to respect who’s on the other side, because they can come back just like that.”

The Blue Jays are favored to win Game 3 and cut the series deficit to 2-1, according to Odds Shark. They range from minus-183 (bet $183 to win $100) to minus-200 favorites, while the Indians range from plus-165 to plus-183 underdogs for Monday’s game.   

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Major League Baseball and its fans couldn’t have asked for much more in the first two games of the 2016 National League Championship Series.

The Chicago Cubs took a step toward ending their World Series curse in Game 1 when Miguel Montero hit a dramatic, game-winning grand slam in the eighth inning off the bench. The Los Angeles Dodgers answered in Game 2 with seven shutout innings from the dominant Clayton Kershaw to tie the series at a game apiece.

This NLCS of iconic locales now shifts from Wrigley Field to Dodger Stadium for Games 3-5.

With that in mind, here is a look at an updated schedule with broadcast information (courtesy of MLB.com) before delving into a series prediction.

Series Prediction

Chicago’s bats were invisible in Game 2, but there are still plenty of reasons to like the 103-win team moving forward in this series.

For one, the Cubs shouldn’t be intimidated playing on the road after they knocked out the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series champion San Francisco Giants in Game 4 of the division series at AT&T Park.

They also have some favorable pitching matchups to rely on, which comes as no surprise for the team that led all of baseball in ERA this year.

Jake Arrieta will take the ball in Game 3. Last year’s National League Cy Young winner already has a no-hitter in his career at Dodger Stadium and will get some run support from his offense against lefty Rich Hill. The Cubs finished third in the league with 220 runs scored and second in the league with a .807 OPS against southpaws this season.

Elsewhere, Chicago’s John Lackey is a battle-tested veteran with 24 postseason appearances on his resume and a 3.22 ERA and 1.25 WHIP in those contests. The Cubs also have Cy Young candidates Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks available for later in the series after the two combined to allow two earned runs in 11.1 innings in the first two games.

Los Angeles’ Kenta Maeda will pitch at least one more time in this series, and Chicago already scored three runs against him in four innings in its Game 1 victory. He also allowed four earned runs in three innings in his division-series start against the Washington Nationals.

Despite some advantages on paper for the Cubs, Kershaw looms over this series.

He already proved he can shut down the Chicago offense on Sunday and demonstrated his mettle in the division series against the Nationals when he started Game 4 with the Dodgers’ backs against the wall and then came out of the bullpen to register the pressure-packed save in Game 5.

New York Times best-selling author Molly Knight put Kershaw’s Game 2 performance from this series into perspective:

Considering he has three Cy Youngs and a National League MVP on his sparkling resume, that is saying something about his outing that prevented the Dodgers from falling into a daunting 2-0 hole in the first two games at Wrigley.

In theory, he can start one or possibly even two more games in this series or be used as a weapon out of the bullpen if needed.

Still, the thought here is that some of the Chicago bats that have been hibernating will wake up enough during the rest of the NLCS against the other pitchers for the Cubs to clinch their first World Series appearance since 1945.

Anthony Rizzo was one of the best players in all of baseball this year and slashed .292/.385/.544 with 32 home runs and 109 RBI. However, he is mired in an abysmal 1-for-23 slump with six strikeouts in the postseason.

Catcher David Ross didn’t seem too concerned, per Steve Greenberg of the Chicago Sun-Times: “People just need to stay positive—this is Anthony Rizzo we’re talking about. I told him I’ve seen David Ortiz not do well in the playoffs, and the next thing you know, he’s World Series MVP.”

Rizzo isn’t the only one the Cubs need to bust out of a slump. Addison Russell drilled 21 home runs and tallied 95 RBI from the shortstop position this year, but he is just 1-for-22 in the postseason.

If those two get going alongside an already red-hot Kris Bryant (slashing .333/.385/.625 in the playoffs) and Javier Baez (slashing .391/.417/.609 in the playoffs), Chicago will have enough of an advantage on the mound and at the plate when Kershaw isn’t pitching to win three of the final five games.      

Prediction: Chicago wins in seven games.

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Two games are in the books in both the American and National League Division Series.

The Cleveland Indians own a 2-0 lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL, while the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers are tied 1-1 in the NL following Los Angeles’ 1-0 win Sunday night in Chicago.

So far, the two series have largely played out as expected, and it’s doubtful either the ALCS or NLCS will wrap up in short order.

Below are brief overviews for both matchups and predictions for how they’ll play out after two games.

Playoff Schedule

ALCS Prediction

Having registered three hits in 21 postseason at-bats, Jose Bautista could’ve used his day off for some personal reflection—maybe figure out why he’s struggling so much.

Instead, the six-time All-Star has become an ALCS truther, according to Vice Sports’ Mike Vorkunov:

Finally, somebody is willing to speak out about MLB favoring the league’s biggest markets—like Cleveland.

It’s easy to see why Bautista and his teammates might be frustrated. The Blue Jays have scored one run and struck out 25 times through the first two games of the ALCS. Toronto couldn’t even touch Josh Tomlin, who finished with a 4.88 FIP during the regular season, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

The biggest concern for the Blue Jays is how they navigate around the Indians bullpen.

In 2014 and 2015, the Kansas City Royals were a prime example of how far dominant late-inning relievers can take a team in the playoffs. In 35 innings, the trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Luke Hochevar gave up one earned run in last year’s postseason.

Winning a critical playoff game is much tougher when you have only six or seven innings to actually take the lead. It’s simply not fair to go from Corey Kluber to Andrew Miller, as the Indians did in Game 1. Josh Tomlin then did enough in Game 2 to hand things over to the bullpen with a 2-1 lead.

Like the Royals did so effectively, Cleveland is forcing Toronto to inflict all of its damage early in the game, when the starting pitchers are going through the lineup for their first and second times.

The Blue Jays have too much offensive firepower to envision this series ending in four or five games. And for as good as Cleveland’s pitching has been so far, rolling with Tomlin and Mike Clevinger in a playoff rotation isn’t ideal. Trevor Bauer is a wild card as well.

The ALCS will be close, but Miller, Cody Allen and Dan Otero swing it in favor of Cleveland.

Prediction: Indians in six

NLCS Prediction

Can the Dodgers start Clayton Kershaw in every game?

The three-time Cy Young Award winner was excellent in Game 2 on Sunday night, going seven scoreless innings and allowing two hits. As The Ringer’s Rany Jazayerli argued, the Dodgers are capable of winning on any given night when they can rely on their two best pitchers:

The trouble for Los Angeles is that Kershaw is a finite resource. He probably only has one more start for the rest of the series.

Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda and Julio Urias fill out the starting rotation. Hill can be great at times, but his Game 2 start in the National League Division Series is evidence of how quickly he can unravel. Maeda and Urias are rookies—the latter of whom is 20 years old.

The Cubs offense isn’t going to be as quiet as it was Monday night over the rest of the series. In addition, the narrative of Game 2 would have been vastly different if the wind hadn’t knocked down Javier Baez’s deep fly to center field in the bottom of the seventh inning.

On a different night, that ball would have cleared the fence, and Chicago would have taken a 2-0 lead. Statcast showed that the odds were in favor of Baez homering in a similar situation:

Having the stronger team isn’t always a guarantee of advancement in the playoffs—see the 2016 Boston Red Sox in the American League Division Series. The Dodgers have an opportunity to close out the series at home over the next three games.

And Anthony Rizzo is leaving a major hole in the middle of Chicago’s lineup. After Sunday night, he’s batting .043 in six postseason games.

Still, Chicago has a dangerous offense from top to bottom and a deeper rotation, the latter of which is vital in a seven-game series.

Prediction: Cubs in seven

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