Trevor Bauer logged the first complete game of any Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher this season, but it resulted in a tough-luck loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in the opener of a 10-game road trip.
The outing was Bauer’s longest of the year at eight innings, though his six strikeouts were the fewest he’s had in any of the six outings. The night began with the right-hander appearing frustrated on the mound in the early innings.
“I was behind a lot more than I would’ve liked to be. It was frustrating. I knew it was going to be a little bit of a battle coming in, so happy with how it turned out,” Bauer said after the loss.
“Basically just have to keep looking at the glove and trying to hit it and try to find a pitch that’s working. I thought my slider was pretty good. I had pretty good command of that. The other ones were just really shaky, so it was a battle. For not being super sharp and for the first East Coast trip, I thought it was OK. Happy I was able to battle through it.”
Bauer effectively made one mistake — a hanging curveball — that Travis Shaw hit for a two-run home run that held as the difference in the game. “I was trying to keep it away,” Bauer said. “It was probably the wrong pitch.
“I wanted to throw a different pitch and second-guessed myself. That’ll get ya every time. I was frustrated with choosing the wrong one.”
Bauer highlighted the Brewers’ left-handed hitters in the lineup as proving challenging, but reiterated his physical state heading into the start served as an indicator of what was to come. “I was feeling how my body was. I knew I wasn’t going to be super sharp,” Bauer explained.
Bauer provides relief for Dodgers
With the Dodgers looking at a bullpen game on Friday, getting eight innings from Bauer was a significant boon. “It’s important,” he said of turning in long starts. “I want to throw deep in a game all the time.
“Doc did promise me when he took me out after six (innings) last time that he would let me throw a complete game [in next start]. True to his word. Unfortunately it was the eighth-inning variety and not a win.”
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