Making his first start since his worst outing of the season, Arizona Diamondbacks pitching prospect bounced back with a slightly better performance, but he still labored through five innings and the Reno Aces, the D-backs'Triple-A affiliate, came away with a victory.
Bauer, who in his previous start allowed 10 hits and four runs in five innings, was unable to pitch into the sixth again. He allowed lots of baserunners, but the only runs that came across the plate were two solo homers he gave up in the third inning.
He went five innings, allowed the two runs, but Tacoma got five hits against him and he walked four. He did strike out sevev, but it took him 105 pitches to get through only five innings.
Reno ended up with a 7-3 win, as they rallied to score five runs in the ninth inning to come away with the win.
One of the things that the Diamondbacks organization is asking Bauer to do better is manage the game. He has to be more efficient with his pitch counts, as he needs to be able to pitch later in games.
All indications are that Bauer will be called up to the majors at some point this season, and the franchise has not had him work out of the bullpen because of his particular warmup routine. However, in the big leagues, you won't last long at all if you can't keep the pitch count low.
Manage the game better, get pitch counts lower, do the little things. They are the same things Bauer needs to continue working on. However, it won't be long until he is working on those from Chase Field.
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