Inside Pitch: Breaking Down Bauer's Outing

For the first time this season, Trevor Bauer was able to go out and earn a victory Thursday against the Minnesota Twins. (Game recap available here) Bauer pitched 6 1/3 strong innings en route to an Indians 6-2 victory, and a series sweep. Until Thursday, Bauer had looked fairly inconsistent. In each of his first two starts, he looked very good in the first couple of innings but then couldn't avoid the "big inning". So I wanted to take a look at what went differently in this start versus the last two. In turn, I decided to do an inning by inning breakdown of his start. Here's how it went:

 

Trevor Bauer pitching vs the Twins. Source: The Jamestown Sun.

Inning 1: Bauer started the game quite well. His location was on point and he was getting batters to swing at really good pitches. He had one aberration, a four-pitch walk to Miguel Sano that had me concerned. He recovered quickly though and got Max Kepler out on just three pitches.

Inning 2: Pretty much the same as inning number one. Again his location was very solid, aside from one pitch that he threw right down the middle of the plate that resulted in a fly ball out. Bauer notched his first strikeout of the game in this inning.

Inning 3: Had a lucky first out on a foul bunt by Eddie Rosario (the pitch was right down the middle) that Roberto Perez made an excellent play on. Bauer then proceeded to strikeout the next batter and he finally got a groundball out on a really nice curveball.

Inning 4: After getting the final out of the third with a nice curve, he struggled with that same pitch in the 4th. He left a bad pitch over the plate that was smashed for a double by Joe Mauer. He then proceeded to get a HUGE strikeout when he got Miguel Sano to go down swinging at a nice cutter. The next batter, Max Kepler then beat Bauer after he made a really nice pitch. After this single, it appeared as if Bauer was on his way once again to giving up a big inning. He walked Grossman to load the bases and then had a bizarre balk when he slipped and fell off the mound and never delivered his pitch. That allowed the first run to score. After the balk, he walked Twins catcher Jason Castro. At this point, the same things Bauer had done well early on in the start had begun to unravel. Eduardo Escobar followed the Castro walk with a sac fly allowing the second run to score. With two outs, Bauer really needed to bare down and avoid the big inning. He did just that by striking out the next batter on just four pitches.

Inning 5: Quite possibly the best comeback from one of the most bizarre innings I've seen in a long time. Bauer came out and retired the side on just 11 pitches, including a strikeout. This was definitely his best inning of the season to this point.

Inning 6: Bauer came out firing in the 6th, striking out Twins slugger Miguel Sano. He got into more hot water though, after giving up a one-out double to Max Kepler. Again, it appeared as if Bauer may unravel after a promising start. He looked visibly shaken after throwing a tough battle with Grossman. He made an excellent pitch that Grossman popped into foul territory and was caught by Yandy Diaz. With his confidence restored he proceeded to strikeout the next batter after he had worked Bauer to a 3-2 count.

Inning 7: Bauer faced only one batter, he threw three straight balls and then got him to fly out to center field. This ended his day. Final line: 6.1 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 K (9.9 K/9 IP), QS

From the breakdown above, I think it's obvious that for the first time this season Bauer was able to bare down and get the key outs he needed to avoid giving up a big inning. The key that I noticed was that Bauer had really good command of the strike zone. Bauer threw 110 pitches, 65 which were strikes (59% strike rate). He did walk three batters, but he was able to successfully limit the damage. Overall, despite getting into some hot water Bauer tossed a gem.

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