The Los Angeles Dodgers nearly completed a sweep of the Oakland Athletics without Cody Bellinger and Mookie Betts on Wednesday, but saw their five-game winning streak come to an end after Kenley Jansen blew his first game of the season, leading to an loss in extra innings.
Trevor Bauer was tabbed with a no-decision despite allowing just two runs and three hits in 6.2 innings of work. He also struck out 10 batters for a second consecutive start, but wasn’t as pleased with his command this time around.
“Mixed bag. I thought my stuff was really good, dealt with some in between inning adjustments that I made. Just behind a lot, like 1-0, 2-0, so I’ve got to clean that up,” Bauer said of his outing against the Athletics.
“That’s one thing that was really good about my first start, I was 84% first-pitch strikes and I was nowhere close to that today. Got a little bit frustrated, but thought I competed well and my stuff was really good.
“Obviously, I would’ve liked to not give up the two-out run on a wild pitch. There’s some things I’ve got to clean up, but overall I think it was fine.”
Among the adjustments Bauer made was throwing his curveball more often. He credited the pitch for helping him strike out the side in the third inning.
“It didn’t seem like they were expecting it, especially to righties,” Bauer said. “I think that was a good adjustment. My curveball was really good today, had a really good feel for it. I think it was just throwing a different look out there.”
Bauer noted he saw more movement with his curveball in Wednesday’s start than his regular season debut against the Colorado Rockies. “Yeah, movements were definitely different,” Bauer began.
“They’re going to be different game to game, just because you have a better feel for stuff or worse feel for stuff. I think my cutter and slider were much better in my first start than they were today.
“I had two hit by pitches; one cutter, one slider. I think my stuff overall — my fastball and curveball — were better today, but that’s the case every new gameday, every new stadium we pitch in, every new city you’re in. Things change.”
Bauer reveals other adjustments made against Athletics
Along with throwing his curveball more frequently, Bauer detailed that he purposely threw more offspeed pitches early in the count to give the Athletics lineup a different look.
“I think they started looking soft, in two-strike counts especially. So I switched to throwing backwards and throwing some slow stuff early, then finishing them with the fastball,” Bauer explained.
“They’ve got a professional lineup over there. They’ve got a lot of really good hitters, guys that have been around a long time, guys that understand the game, know what they’re doing at the plate.
“So they came out with a gameplan against me. It was a chess match a little bit, going back and forth. OK, what adjustments did they make? I made some adjustments, then they made some adjustments to me, so I made some adjustments back.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for the guys in their lineup.”
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