Cleveland Indians: Trevor Bauer has finally figured it out

The Cleveland Indians pitching staff is starting to come together all at once, and that includes Trevor Bauer. 

The Cleveland Indians young, incredibly talented pitching staff has garnered lots of media attention over the past few seasons. However, the headlines attached to Trevor Bauer have not always been on a positive note.

Between Bauer’s social media fan encounters, the 2016 playoff drone incident and his all-around inconsistent play, he has become a guy some fans love to hate. The question now arises, is Bauer beginning to turn it all around?

Much like Indians ace Corey Kluber, Bauer had a very sluggish start to the 2017 campaign. Entering the All-star break, Bauer was 7-7 with a horrendous 5.24 ERA.

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Looking to turn it around in the second half, Bauer got embarrassed by the Oakland Athletics, surrendering four runs on three hits, while walking three and only recording two outs in the first inning. He would follow that start by allowing three runs over five innings in his next start, and that is when the turnaround began.

With the emergence of twenty-six year old Mike Clevinger and the return of Danny Salazar, the Indians elected to temporarily use a six-man rotation. It seemed almost inevitable that Bauer would wind up in the bullpen before long, but he had other ideas.

Bauer has made four starts since that point, which have entirely turned his season around. Over that stretch, Bauer is 3-0 with an ERA of 1.88, a 1.15 WHIP and 33 strikeouts.

Some may say that four starts don’t mean anything for a pitcher as inconsistent as Bauer, but this run has been much too impressive to doubt. Not only are the numbers jaw-dropping on their own, but he has done it against some of the best lineups in baseball.

Bauer went seven innings of one-run ball against the Colorado Rockies (third-highest scoring MLB team) and New York Yankees (fourth-highest scoring team), and struck out 11 batters Monday night against the Boston Red Sox.

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Any pitcher can go on a nice run, but in order to go on this big of a run against those big lineups, he must have figured something out.