The Dodgers are .500 in Trevor Bauer starts and that’s unacceptable

The Los Angeles Dodgers put forth another unimpressive performance — from an offensive standpoint — in their 2-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday night.

You guessed it. Another quality start wasted.

And it’s becoming an alarming trend.

Somehow, the Dodgers are just 3-3 in which games Trevor Bauer starts. The man leads the league with 40 innings pitched across his six starts and owns a 2.48 ERA and 0.68 WHIP with 51 strikeouts.

Yes, it’s only April, but this is already teetering toward “unacceptable.”

Bauer tossed a complete game on Thursday and lost. He’s thrown 21 innings and allowed just five earned runs in the games the Dodgers were unable to come out on top.

This should be the league’s best offense! And it should still be among the best even with a few injuries. Over their last 12 games, the Dodgers are 4-12 and have scored just 40 runs. That’s an average of 3.33 per game. As you can imagine, a number of other quality starts by the rest of the rotation have been wasted, but Bauer’s are perhaps the most glaring.

The front office blew by the luxury tax threshold to pay the right-hander the highest AAV of any player in Major League Baseball, and in a bizarre turn of events, Bauer is delivering on his end (for the most part) while the offense/bullpen have let him down. The Dodgers are averaging 4.83 runs scored per game when Bauer is on the mound, but that number is significantly inflated due to their 11-run explosion against the Rockies in his season debut.

We’re not going to sit here and pretend like Bauer hasn’t made his mistakes. He’s been prone to giving up the long ball, and it’s cost him dearly at times. But he’s been almost everything the Dodgers could have hoped for, and to go 3-3 in his first six outings, after which he’s among the best in the league, is disappointing. And it cannot become a trend.

Thankfully it’s only April and the Dodgers have an excuse because their offense is hobbled a bit right now, but perhaps more pressure needs to be put on the team’s depth … because, regardless of who’s playing, they should be able to score seven runs in three starts to help out their co-ace.

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