Reigning NL Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer returns to the mound for Monday night’s series opener against San Francisco looking to redeem himself after yielding three homers in his last start June 23rd at San Diego. That’s been a recurring theme for the Dodgers ace, who has already served up 17 round-trippers—second-most in the National League behind Kyle Hendricks—in 2021. Bauer is also ninth among qualified starters in HR/9 (1.5 home runs per nine innings).
With teams prioritizing the long ball above all else, many pitchers are sharing the same struggle, including Nationals workhorse Max Scherzer, who was taken deep four times in his season debut back in April. However, Bauer (who has been among the most vocal players in opposing MLB’s recent crusade against illegal foreign substances) believes he’s been getting the short end of the stick, going as far as to say he’s had the worst home run luck of any pitcher in baseball.
Twitter predictably didn’t want to hear any of Bauer’s flimsy excuses, showing very little sympathy for the right-hander, who is due an outrageous $38 million this season.
What’s luck got to do with it? Not much if you ask Fangraphs, who conducted a study to see if Bauer’s claim held any actual merit. Upon further examination, Ben Clemens would argue that, if anything, Bauer’s results have fallen on the “lucky end of the spectrum. Of Bauer’s 88 “mistake” pitches this year, hitters have only made him pay in the form of extra bases about 4.5 percent of the time, which ranks in the 39th percentile. Based on that data, roughly 61 percent of pitchers have had worse luck than Bauer in 2021.
Bauer’s debut season in Los Angeles has largely been a success—he and teammate Walker Buehler are tied for the major-league lead in quality starts with 13 apiece—though the 17 gopher balls he’s surrendered would suggest the former Reds and Indians hurler hasn’t yet rounded into Cy Young form. Neither have the Dodgers, who enter Monday night’s action trailing the first-place Giants by 3.5 games in the NL West.
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