Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant was removed from his team’s loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday after just two innings. Since Bryant is a 23-year-old kid and the game was played during the day, Twitter immediately began drawing conclusions.
If you search Twitter for “Kris Bryant hangover,” you’ll see what we mean. The team said that Bryant was removed from the game due to flu-like symptoms, but a lot of people weren’t buying it. For better or worse, Bryant addressed those critics on Friday.
“I think if you know the type of person I am — and my friends and family and everybody in here knows who I am and what I believe in — a trade would be way more believable (than a hangover during a game),” he said, per Patrick Mooney of CSNChicago.com.
Some of the speculation was caused by Dan Bernstein of CBS Chicago, who wrote a piece this week that examined Bryant’s numbers in day games vs. night games. The rookie is hitting just .226 with two home runs, 36 strikeouts and an OPS of .710 in 24 day games. Bryant has been a completely different player in night games, batting .307 with a .940 OPS.
Berstein seemed to cast doubt on the flu-like symptoms story:
Bryant has had other daytime issues, too, having to come out of a game last month with what the team called “dehydration” and then exiting Thursday afternoon with “flu-like symptoms.”
Being a Cub still means playing often at 1:20 p.m., sometimes right after a game the night before. As dedicated and professional as Bryant has been since being drafted two years ago and rising through the minors, it’s reasonable to expect he will make the proper adjustments, acclimating himself to the demands of the major league schedule.
Bryant said he has struggled with allergy flare-ups, and people close to him told Mooney that the young slugger doesn’t drink. Unless someone has proof that points to the contrary, we have no reason not to believe him.
If Bryant thought the treatment his teammates gave him after his first career home run was a taste of life in the big leagues, he was wrong. Having to address social media rumors about a hangover is more like it.
