Brief hiccup derails Bauer’s otherwise solid start

CHICAGO — Trevor Bauer stood on the warning track in front of the visitors’ dugout at Wrigley Field, surrounded by reporters and trying to hear questions amid the ongoing cheers from the lingering crowd. One blue-clad Cubs fan only a few rows away began heckling the Indians’ pitcher in an effort to distract him.

Bauer began to speak, but then stopped mid-sentence as the shouting behind him grew in volume. After briefly closing his eyes and pausing for eight seconds to collect himself, Cleveland’s starter continued. Much like in that moment, it was an eight-batter disruption within Bauer’s outing — a start that began brilliantly — that proved to be the difference in a 3-2 loss to the Cubs in Game 5 of the World Series, sending the Tribe home with a three games to two Series lead.

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“I executed pitches, tried to stick to the game plan,” Bauer said. “They hit some pitches, and I got unlucky.”

“You can pitch the next game, Bauer!”

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“I felt great the whole time,” Bauer continued.

“BAU-ER! BAU-ER!”

“I threw the ball really well,” said the pitcher.

That last chant from Bauer’s postgame tormentor echoed the one that he heard from the entire crowd while he was on the mound in the fourth inning, when Chicago scored all three of its runs. That flurry began with a towering leadoff home run from Cubs slugger Kris Bryant, who drilled an inside two-seamer into the left-field bleacher seats. Anthony Rizzo sent the next pitch — an elevated four-seamer — bouncing off the ivy-covered wall in right for a double.

Chicago’s offensive …

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