etween 20 and 49. His failure rate is still quite low - he has only been out 11 times for single-digit scores in 58 Test innings - but has not been converting his start

TORONTO --?Trevor Bauer couldnt stop the bleeding. Ethan Greenidge Jersey.Four batters into the first inning of Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Monday, blood began to drip out of Bauers right pinkie finger, causing the Cleveland Indians pitcher to be forced from the game. But six Indians relievers combined to record 25 outs in a 4-2 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.Im a competitor, man. I want to be out there, Bauer said. I wouldnt have gone out there if I didnt 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.Bauer gashed his finger while doing routine maintenance on a drone last week in Cleveland and had his scheduled start pushed back from Game 2. According to Bauer, his finger hadnt bled in the previous two days, leading the Indians to believe he would be able to pitch.But Bauer said he felt blood trickling down his ring finger after the third pitch of an at-bat against Troy Tulowitzki, the fourth batter of the game.?I looked down, it was bleeding pretty good, Bauer said after the game, in which the Indians took a 3-0 lead in the series. I was like, you know, my only chance to stay in the game here is to get through the at-bat and get in the dugout and hope to stop the bleeding. Sometimes the circumstances arent in your favor.Bauer walked Tulowitzki, at which point Blue Jays manager John Gibbons signaled to plate umpire Brian Gorman. Rules forbid pitchers from using a foreign substance, including a bandage, on their hand. Sources told ESPNs Buster Olney that Bauer was indeed removed under the foreign-substance rule, and Gibbons said MLB discussed the situation with the teams ahead of time.The other night we had a pre-series meeting, they brought up the injury and MLB told both teams if he starts bleeding at all hes got to come out of the game, Gibbons said. Regardless, you cant put anything on it to do all that, and we kept getting calls that he was bleeding pretty good.Bauer was replaced by Dan Otero after 21 pitches.The Indians knew this was a possibility. Before the game, manager Terry Francona outlined a scenario in which Bauer would have to leave the game early, forcing the bullpen into action. As a result, he decided to alter the rotation and start ace right-hander Corey Kluber on short rest in Game 4 on Tuesday.Francona said Gibbons was almost apologetic for having to point out the injury to Gorman.Gibby actually called me. He goes, Thats not really what we wanted to do, but it was pretty ... I get it, Francona said. I mean, shoot, it was only a matter of time until everybody saw it. It was bleeding pretty bad.Francona, in a postgame interview with Olney, said he figured the Blue Jays side had seen the extent of the bleeding on TV.When I went out there and got to the mound, I couldnt believe how much it was bleeding, Francona said. I cant believe he hid it for the two pitches. I mean, it was on the dirt, it was on the rubber. And Brian Gorman looked at me and said, He cant pitch. I was like, I know that.Bauer didnt put up much of an argument about leaving the game, another signal that the decision was out of his hands.Im sure if they had given him the option of chopping his finger off or coming out of the game, he wouldve chopped his finger off,?Indians closer Cody Allen?said.Gorman had approached the mound as Francona made his visit.Thats too much, Gorman could be heard saying in a TV replay, referring to the blood flow from Bauers finger. Youre going to have to replace him.As he walked off the field to a mock ovation from the raucous crowd at Rogers Centre, Bauer motioned to the crowd with his injured finger.That was the loudest standing ovation Ive ever gotten after an outing, Bauer said. I guess I enjoyed the class of them cheering since I was injured.Francona, who also was Curt Schillings manager with Boston during the famous bloody-sock game against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS, already is juggling a rotation that is missing injured starters Carlos Carrasco (broken hand) and Danny Salazar (forearm strain). Right-hander Mike Clevinger had been slated to start Game 4, but given the uncertainty over Bauer, the Indians moved him to the bullpen as a long reliever and slotted Ryan Merritt into the rotation.Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said the team thinks Bauer will be able to pitch again in the ALCS if it goes long enough and that Bauer should be ready by the World Series if the Indians are fortunate enough to advance.Hes real disappointed, Antonetti said. I dont want to speak for him, but I think he feels like he let the team down in some respects. He was dead set on pitching deep into the game and giving us a chance to win. To have to leave it early and turn it over to the bullpen, he was frustrated.But in the end, he was elated that we won. Thats been part of Trevors maturation as a pitcher. Hes been able to put all those other things aside and just focus on the team win. He was pretty happy at the end of the game.Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Sammy Knight Jersey. The third-ranked Ivanovic, who won the event in 2008 and 10, served five aces and broke Wickmayer, also a former winner in 2009, five times. "The result looked easier than it really was," Ivanovic said. Tony Galbreath Jersey. The Americans, skipped by John Shuster, seized the advantage in the eighth end by scoring five points for a 7-3 lead. The Czechs pulled two back in the ninth, but Shusters team of third Jeff Isaacson, second Jared Zezel and lead John Landsteiner ended with another point to secure the last Olympic berth on offer. http://www.customsaintsjersey.com/custom...large-812e.html. Miikka Kiprusoff had just announced his retirement after a decade-long run in Calgary and it would be up to Berra and Ramo to fill the void. A sashay down the pitch, a free swing of the arms, and KL Rahul had gone from 96 to 102. It was his third Test hundred, and he had taken 182 balls to get there.At the other end, Cheteshwar Pujara was batting on 28 off 106 balls. His strike rate was 26.41. Rahuls was 56.04.If you had just arrived at the ground, or had just switched on your televisions, it might have seemed like two top-order batsmen adopting contrasting methods against the same bowling attack, in the same conditions. That wasnt quite the case.At the start of day two, Rahul had been batting on 75 off 114 balls, and Pujara on 18 off 57. When he reached his hundred, Rahul had added 27 to his overnight score in 68 balls, and Pujara, in that time had made 10 off 49. India had scored 45 in 19 overs, at a run rate of 2.36.On a pitch still offering bounce and seam movement, West Indies quicks had bowled with discipline, holding a fifth-stump line, trying to draw the batsmen into indiscretion. Neither batsman had obliged. Of the 84 balls that Shannon Gabriel, Jason Holder and Miguel Cummins had sent down in the morning, till that point, Rahul and Pujara had left 38 and defended 29.Against the fast bowlers, Rahul had been just as watchful as Pujara. Ten of the 27 runs he had scored had come off two strokes; the six that brought up his hundred and a swept four, both off the offspinner Roston Chase. Take out those two shots, and Rahuls strike rate for the day was 25.00, hardly different to Pujaras 20.41.Both batsmen were playing exactly as the situation demanded. It was hard-nosed Test cricket.West Indies had been shot out for 196, and had ended day one with India one down and 70 behind. They had bowled poorly on the first afternoon, the fast bowlers sending down half-volleys and the spinners, particularly Devendra Bishoo, routinely dropping short. Rahul had taken full toll, with languid drives, deft clips off his toes and dismissive pulls, and scored his runs at a strike rate of just over 65.West Indies must have resolved to bowl with far more discipline on the second morning, use whatever help the pitch still gave them, and hoped they could get a wicket or two early to put India under some sort of pressure. Given the quality of bowlers at their disposal, they perhaps did not feel confident enough to bowl a more attacking line. And so the fifth-stump line, and the hope of inducing errors.India were determined not to make those errors. Followers of Indian cricket may have become used to self-denial from Pujara, the refusal to be drawn into looseness outside off stump. Rahul they knew less about. This was only his sixth Test. He had scored freely on the first day, but had been allowed to do so to a large extent. Now the bowling was better, and he was showing he could handle that as well.The day began with Holder bowling to Rahul and Gabriel to Pujara. Holder bowled three successive maidens as Pujara played the second line expertly. When the line was wide outside off stump, he could leave comfortably, but when it was closer, he waited until the last possible moment, eyes locked on the balls trajectory, before deciding whether to leave or defend. It took him until the last ball of the first hour, in the first over of spin, to score his first runs of the morning.Gabriel, quicker and more aggressive, posed a more direct threat, getting some balls to straighten off the pitch and others to climb awkwardly. Rahul weaved away nimbly from the short ones, got on top of the bounce when he could, and by and large left comfortably outside off stump.He had a couple of edgy moments, playing and missing when he tried to cut one too close to his body, and then again while defending a legcutter off the front foot. But he made sure his hands didnt jab at the ball, and ensured it kept a safe distance from his edge.Cummins, the debutant, came on after the drinks break, and tested Pujara, beating both his edges with seam movement and getting a shortish ball to rear at him and hit his glove. Pujara handled this as well as he posssibly could, his top hand snug against his chest at the point of impact and his bottom hand off the handle, and the ball fell harmlessly by his side. Zach Wood Jersey. .There was still life in the pitch, but there was nothing to show for it on the scorecard. West Indies had bowled poorly on the first day and taken just one wicket; they had bowled much better now and taken no wickets.As the partnership moved towards lunch and then past it, the runs flowed a little easier. Pujara drove Cummins and Gabriel to the straight boundary, and in between slapped Cummins through cover point. Rahul stepped out to Bishoo and lofted him over extra-cover, achieving a full, fluid extension of his arms.Then, a boundary short of a half-century, Pujara made a fatal misjudgment. A shortish ball at his hips, tucked into the leg side. Perhaps the ball came on slower than expected, and went squarer than he intended, reducing the distance Chase had to cover to his right from midwicket. Chase ran, picked up, spun around, and threw down the stumps at the bowlers end. A beautiful moment of athletic poise. Pujara, sprawled flat on the ground, knew he was out. He picked himself up, his shirt streaked with dirt, and trudged back.He had made 21, 31, 14, 28, 16 and 46 in his last six Test innings.Shrugging off a brief attack of cramps, Rahul moved to a career-best 158 before he fell in the fifth over after tea. This was some effort. Five of his six Tests had come because of injury to one of Indias settled openers. He had scored three hundreds in those six Tests. With this latest performance, he had made himself extremely hard to leave out.When Vijay, one of Indias most consistent Test performers in the last two-and-a-half years, recovers from the thumb injury that has kept him out of this game, India will have a hard decision to make. Rahul has just scored a hundred. Shikhar Dhawan made 84 important runs in Antigua. Pujaras recent scores do not leap off the page. Since scoring an unbeaten 145 against Sri Lanka last year and starting the home series against South Africa with 77 in a low-scoring Test in Mohali, he has made a string of in-between scores.In Antigua, he steered India past the early loss of Vijay, saw off a testing spell from Gabriel, and took India to lunch with no further loss of wickets, but had only made 16 when he got himself out to a miscued pull. Now, again, he had got himself out after doing the hard work.If theres one single, unified cause for Pujaras recent run, its hard to identify. But something isnt quite right. Rahul has three hundreds and no fifties in six Tests. Pujara once had a similar record. After the first Test of Indias 2013-14 tour of South Africa, he had scored seven hundreds and only two fifties, in 16 Tests.Since then, he has made one hundred, four fifties, and 15 scores between 20 and 49. His failure rate is still quite low - he has only been out 11 times for single-digit scores in 58 Test innings - but has not been converting his starts for a while. Something has changed, and it has been a while since Pujara last looked like the big-hundred machine he was in his first few seasons.If India leave out Pujara when Vijay returns and play Rahul at No. 3, they will not quite get a like-for-like replacement. Rahul has shown a great ability to convert his starts, but he has also shown he can be vulnerable early on, and has been out six times for single-digit scores in just eleven Test innings. Rahul brims with talent, but still has to show he isnt a hundred-or-nothing batsman.How will India line up when Vijay returns to full fitness? Will they back Pujara to find a solution for his curious malaise? Will they play Rahul, perhaps out of position, and back him to show he has tightened his early-innings game? Or will they leave out Dhawan or even, unlikely as it seems, Vijay? No matter which way they go, they will have made a difficult decision. ' ' '