first opportunity to pitch on American soil<\/a> since the emergence of the sexual assault allegations, Bauer reiterated a belief that he has been blackballed by MLB.<\/p>\n\u201cI could put up a 0.00 ERA and strike out more people than Mason Miller and it wouldn\u2019t change anything,\u201d Bauer said. \u201cI\u2019ve known what this is the entire time. I\u2019m blackballed. I\u2019m not allowed to play Major League Baseball. \u2026 I\u2019ve literally offered to pay my entire salary back and play for zero dollars.<\/p>\n
Albert Pujols, who was briefly teammates with Bauer in Los Angeles, said the righty has to make amends with MLB before making a return. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I say there\u2019s nothing I can do, that everything is completely out of my control, I have offered everything. It just doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pujols, who was briefly teammates with Bauer with the Dodgers in 2021, added that the right-hander\u2019s ability is not the reason for his lack of MLB opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho doesn\u2019t want to have Trevor Bauer on their team? Of course,\u201d Pujols added. \u201cBut I think at the end of the day, you know, he\u2019s still trying, but he needs to clear out what his issue is with MLB.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the past few seasons, Bauer continued his career internationally, pitching in Japan and Mexico, to mixed results.<\/p>\n
Trevor Bauer last pitched in the majors with the Dodgers. AP<\/p>\n
He spent 2023 with Nippon Professional Baseball\u2019s Yokohama DeNA BayStars before earning Pitcher of the Year in the Mexican Baseball League in 2024.<\/p>\n
Last season, he returned to NPB with the BayStars, putting up a 4.51 ERA, the worst of any starter in the league.<\/p>\n
In two outings with the Ducks, Bauer has shown flashes of his dominance, recording eight strikeouts across four innings and then tossing a seven-inning no-hitter in his most recent outing.<\/p>\n
After the win, he took to social media to needle critics who claim he\u2019s past his physical prime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to be around American fans and enjoy playing baseball in my home country because I\u2019ve not been allowed to play baseball in my home country for years for no good reason,\u201d Bauer said. \u201cSo instead of getting bitter about it, I want to come and enjoy the fans that are here and feel like I am accepted in American baseball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a huge, passionate fan base. Logically I know that I\u2019m loved by the American baseball community, but once you get to the MLB level and the large brands in baseball and the media, they just hate me. So it\u2019s easy to feel like I\u2019m an outcast here and I don\u2019t want to feel like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albert Pujols sees only one clear way for Trevor Bauer to pitch in the majors again. As Bauer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7268,5,20756,57,4,86815,185,7229],"class_list":{"0":"post-687015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-albert-pujols","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-long-island-ducks","11":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sexual-assaults","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-trevor-bauer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116495875044564380","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}