Yokohama DeNA BayStars Trevor Bauer has reached double-digit wins in his first season in Nippon Professional Baseball. But instead of celebrating his 10 wins,토토사이트 he showed his true colours by consoling an opposing pitcher and winning the Cy Young Award.
Bauer took the mound against the Junichi Dragons of the Nippon Professional Baseball 2023 at the Banterin Dome in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on 25 May (JST), throwing 126 pitches over eight innings, allowing two runs (two earned) on seven hits with three walks and seven strikeouts to earn his 10th win of the season.
Bauer bounced back against the Hanshin Tigers on the 20th, throwing a whopping 120 pitches over eight innings, allowing two runs (two earned) on nine hits with one walk and six strikeouts for a Quality Start+ (seven innings, three earned runs or less). However, despite his struggles, Bauer was unable to get the win as the offence failed to respond. He made up for it today.
Backed by three runs to start the game, Bauer got off to a clean start by getting all three batters he faced in the top of the first inning on fly balls. He got out of the first inning just fine. After getting leadoff hitter Takuya Kinoshita to ground out to third base in the second inning, Bauer suddenly got shaky and gave up three straight singles to load the bases. However, he got out of the jam by striking out Takahiro Matsuba and Yuki Okabayashi in succession.
Yokohama DeNA BayStars Trevor Bauer./Yokohama DeNA BayStars SNS
Yokohama DeNA BayStars Trevor Bauer./Yokohama DeNA BayStars SNS
The first run came in the third inning. After giving up singles to Seiya Hosokawa and Kinoshita, Bauer was hit by a 152-kilometre fastball from Orlando Calixte with runners on first and second, allowing two runners to score. But Bauer didn’t falter, getting the next batter to ground out to first base to prevent further damage, then escaping a bases-loaded jam in the fourth to record his first three-hit shutout inning against Junichi’s centre-field lineup in the fifth.
After cruising through the first inning, Bauer gave up a run in the sixth on back-to-back doubles with the bases loaded, but with the support of her bats, the damage was done. Bauer returned to the mound in the seventh to record his second no-hitter of the day with two strikeouts, before shutting down the Junichi bats in the eighth with a 155km/h fastball on 125 pitches to earn his 10th win of the season.
Bauer had a moment of clarification after the game. Bauer started the day wearing a light blue glove, but after being warned by the umpire in the third inning, he switched to a pink glove. According to Japan’s Junichi Sports, Bauer said, “The umpire joked, ‘It’s too cool, the other players are envious, so why don’t you change it?’ I think he made that comment because my glove strap was shiny,” Bauer laughed.
Trevor Bauer, Yokohama DeNA BayStars./Yokohama DeNA BayStars Social Media
Yokohama DeNA BayStars Trevor Bauer./Yokohama DeNA BayStars SNS
And before Bauer basked in the glow of his 10th win, he showed some class by consoling an opposing pitcher. That’s because Ren Kondo, who took the mound in the top of the ninth, had given up 10 runs (eight earned) on eight hits and five walks in one inning of work. “I have one thing to say,” Bauer said, “any good pitcher has days like this. Don’t be discouraged or disheartened by the result, and keep moving forward,” he said in a message of support.
Bauer went on to make history by becoming only the second foreign pitcher in Yokohama DeNA history to win 10 games in his first season in Japanese professional baseball, and his seven strikeouts gave him 128 for the season, breaking the club’s all-time record for strikeouts by a foreign pitcher by 20 years (123).