Major League Baseball put star Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer on administrative leave in the wake of disturbing sexual assault allegations made against the Cy Young Award winner.
A woman provided graphic details and photos of her alleged encounters with Bauer in a request for a domestic violence restraining order filed this week in L.A. County Superior Court.
Bauer's agent, Jon Fetterolf, previously said that his client "had a brief and wholly consensual sexual relationship" with the woman earlier this year that she initiated. Bauer has not been charged with any crime.
Police in Pasadena, California, have confirmed they are investigating Bauer, a Southern California native who signed with the Dodgers this winter.
“MLB’s investigation into the allegations made against Trevor Bauer is ongoing. While no determination in the case has been made, we have made the decision to place Mr. Bauer on seven-day administrative leave effective immediately," MLB said in a statement on Friday afternoon.
"MLB continues to collect information in our ongoing investigation concurrent with the Pasadena Police Department’s active criminal investigation. We will comment further at the appropriate time.”
The Dodgers are in the nation's capital right now for a series against the Washington Nationals.
Bauer had been slated to be the Dodgers starting pitcher on Sunday.
Bauer's agents said Friday their client will not appeal and that the MLB action does not "in any way reflect a finding" of wrongdoing.
"We reaffirm our original statement and refute [the woman's] allegations in the strongest possible terms," Bauer's agents Fetterolf and Rachel Luba said in a statement.
"Mr. Bauer will not appeal MLB's decision to place him on administrative leave at this time in an effort to minimize any distractions to the Dodgers organization and to his teammates."
Dodgers President Stan Kasten said Friday that he accepted MLB's action: "I trust that process, to get us where it needs to go."
"I know what has been in the public domain," Kasten told reporters. "Apparently there's plenty more information that I have not been told, that I am not privy to, that I do not know anything about. And so I'm going to wait till all of that fact-gathering is complete and the decision was made."
Bauer will not be with the team until further notice, the Dodgers said.
Manager Dave Roberts insisted that Bauer’s issue with police and MLB will not distract the club.
The Dodgers are locked in one of baseball’s most compelling races. They came into Friday night’s action in second place in the National League West, half-game behind the upstart San Francisco Giants and two games ahead of the third-place San Diego Padres.
“I’m not worried about the guys in the clubhouse right now. We had a great day today visiting the White House. Guys are ready to win a baseball game,” Roberts told reporters.
“There’s a lot of things that take place that are out of guys can control. We will focus on staying together and winning baseball games and nothing is going to change that.”
Bauer was not with the Dodgers on Friday as they visited the White House where they were honored for winning the 2020 World Series.
The Dodgers were crowned champions of the last year’s abbreviated baseball season, which was limited to a mere 60 regular season games due to the coronavirus pandemic. A normal season is 162 games.
Bauer's addition to the Dodgers this past off-season was greeted by a groan across pro baseball as one of the sport's best teams appeared to improve.
The late-blooming Bauer, 30, has morphed into one of baseball’s best hurlers, mastering pitches with radical movements that have confounded flailing batters.
Modern metrics have been able to capture the number of revolutions the baseball spins between a pitcher's hand and the catcher's glove. The spin rate on Bauer's fastball and curveball this season are ranked in the 100th and 96th percentiles, respectively.
