Mookie Betts' commentary on Trevor Bauer creating unnecessary Dodgers stir

Mookie Betts appearing at the World Series on Monday was a unique kind of disaster, ranging from the critical commentary about him speaking with Arizona Diamondbacks star rookie Corbin Carroll, which we already talked about, to his quotes about former teammate Trevor Bauer.

It's not entirely clear how the topic of conversation even came up, but Betts was speaking on everything under the sun as a correspondent for MLB in the middle of all the action.

It's admittedly hard for players in these kinds of situations to avoid certain questions because those types of responses garner negative attention too, and Betts is always the type of guy to voice positivity rather than inflammatory verbiage.

As it pertains to Bauer, anybody who talks about the exiled pitcher must be careful. Any misstep by forgetting to mention "allegations" and your inbox is flooded by his PR team. Criticize him, and he might just come after you on social media. Or issue a video/vlog response to whatever it is that's bothering him.

Nonetheless, whether the pending sexual assault allegations levied against Bauer are proven true or not, the pitcher received the longest non-lifetime suspension from MLB and ended up settling with his accuser in court. We'll leave it at that. We've talked about this enough, honestly. But Betts talking about it has created a stir, especially because he had only nice things to say about Bauer.

Mookie Betts' commentary on Trevor Bauer creating unnecessary Dodgers stir

Dodgers fans have been put through enough this year, from the disappointing play to the injuries to Julio Urías' arrest. Did they really need the social media outrage about this?

Regardless of whether or not Bauer is "awesome," that's just probably not the right choice of words. Then to say "nothing ever came from" the off-the-field issues? That's just objectively ... incorrect? Bauer was suspended. Though his suspension was reduced, an independent arbiter believed he still should've been punished. He settled with his accuser. Whatever happened, it was entangled and complicated enough to last as long as it did while bringing all the disturbing press with it.

And now we have ourselves a real conundrum. We've got fans mad at Betts for calling Bauer "awesome" and wishing the Dodgers would re-sign him. Then we've got fans mad at the fans who are mad at Betts. Then we have people acting as if Betts' opinion of Bauer absolves the pitcher of every possible, alleged wrongdoing, in addition to the past speculation that Bauer was a clubhouse disruption. And now Betts is on trial in the court of public opinion for saying anything positive about his former teammate, though we will say he probably has no right to act as if he knows what happened between Bauer and somebody else.

Wherever you stand on this topic, everyone can probably agree that this is the least desirable outcome since we're supposed to be enjoying the World Series, featuring the star players present at the festivities taking on unique roles after their teams were eliminated.

The Dodgers were hit with an unforeseen, premature elimination. And when they reappeared weeks later, it got even worse. Betts speaking with Carroll. Tommy Pham revealing the Dodgers screwed the pooch. And now this Betts-Bauer story, which is going to have the longest shelf life of all.