The 107.8-mph, 446-foot shot off Buffalo starter Casey Lawrence came on the heels of a big league spring training with the Yankees where the 27-year-old batted. The way he looked Friday, he picked up where he left off.īauers' first blast was a sky-scraping drive in the second inning that crashed down on the lawn in center for the first run of the evening.
But when the team was in Rochester for a series, his elbow ballooned up, a bone chip needed to be removed and Bauers' season ended a month and a half too soon. The way they went about their work in the batting cage, the amount of preparation they put into each game - it was different and Bauers started trending upward. Things started to change once he joined the RailRiders, however. At that point, the one-time highly touted Tampa Bay Rays prospect was coming off a handful of disappointing seasons in the majors, and had bottomed out in Triple-A with the Reds after hitting. Bauers joined the RailRiders halfway through last season after the New York Yankees acquired him in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds.
