Trevor Bauer pitched a seven-inning no-hitter for the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League on Sunday, April 26, striking out seven and walking one in a 13-0 win over the Lancaster Stormers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
It was only his second professional start in the United States since June 2021.
He retired the first 15 batters he faced, gave up a walk, retired the next five, unleashed a roar on the mound when the final batter struck out, went out and signed autographs for the opposing team’s fans, then posted on X, “Trevor Bauer sucks so much. He’s so washed.”
That is the Trevor Bauer experience in 2026, in full.
Bauer’s Big Day
The game was the first of a Sunday doubleheader necessitated by a rainout the day before.
Bauer took the mound for the Ducks against the Stormers at Penn Medicine Park and proceeded to completely dismantle a professional lineup for seven innings.
He got through the first 15 batters without allowing a baserunner. One out into the seventh inning, Stormers catcher Kevin Watson Jr. worked a walk, the only blemish on the line.
Bauer then retired the next five hitters to finish off the third no-hitter in Long Island Ducks franchise history.
Seven innings. Zero hits. Zero runs. One walk. Seven strikeouts. 84 pitches. The Ducks won 13-0. He is now 1-0 with a 1.64 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 11 innings across two starts.
After the final called strike three, Bauer let out the kind of roar you hear from a man who has been carrying something heavy for a long time.
Then he stayed on the field and signed autographs and took pictures with fans at the opposing team’s ballpark.
Lancaster fans had been chanting his name down the stretch, pulling for him to complete the no-hitter, and he rewarded them for it.
Then came the tweet. “Trevor Bauer sucks so much. He’s so washed.”
Bauer Records The Third No-Hitter In Long Island Ducks History
The no-hitter is the third in Long Island Ducks franchise history, joining Rod Henderson’s nine-inning gem against Atlantic City on May 25, 2001, and Robert Stock’s nine-inning effort at Southern Maryland on July 18, 2023.
It is the ninth individual no-hitter in Atlantic League history and the first ever thrown in the month of April. At 35 years old, Bauer is the second-oldest pitcher to throw a no-hitter in the league’s history, only Lincoln Mikkelsen, who did it at 38, was older.
The Atlantic League is a professional independent league and an MLB Professional Partner League, it serves as a testing ground for rule changes that eventually make their way into the majors and as a proving ground for players trying to work their way back into affiliated baseball.
It is not the same level as Triple-A, let alone the major leagues. But it is organized professional baseball, and a no-hitter in any organized professional league is a genuine achievement.
Sports commentator Dan Clark put the performance in direct terms, “There is absolutely no doubt he could still pitch in the Majors.”
Who Is Trevor Bauer?
Bauer was selected third overall in the 2011 MLB Draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
He pitched in the big leagues for ten years, for Arizona, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Los Angeles, and in 2020 won the National League Cy Young Award with the Cincinnati Reds, posting a 1.73 ERA in a COVID-shortened season.
He was the first Reds pitcher to win the award since Jim Maloney in 1969.
His last MLB appearance was June 28, 2021, with the Dodgers, six innings, two runs, eight strikeouts, a win. Two days later, on June 30, 2021, Lindsey Hill accused Bauer of sexual assault.
The accusations, investigations and legal proceedings that followed consumed the next several years of his life and ended his MLB career entirely.
MLB suspended him for 324 games, the longest domestic violence suspension in league history, which he eventually served in full. The Dodgers released him.
Bauer and Hill settled their civil case in late 2023. Bauer revealed text messages from Hill that he said were damning, including one in which she described him as her “next victim.”
In June 2025, a court ordered Hill to pay Bauer more than $300,000 for violating the settlement by discussing the case publicly on podcasts and in media appearances.
Hill has since said that MLB has additional evidence of Bauer’s alleged misconduct that goes beyond what was made public.
While the legal proceedings played out, Bauer went overseas. He pitched for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in Japan in 2023, posting a 2.59 ERA.
He went to Mexico in 2024, where his ERA dropped to 2.48 and his strikeout rate climbed to 13.0 per nine innings.
He returned to Japan in 2025, where his ERA rose to 4.41, his worst season since before his Cy Young. This spring he signed with the Long Island Ducks, making his return to American professional baseball at age 35.
This June will mark five years since he last pitched in an MLB game.
Why Has No MLB Team Signed Bauer?
Bauer has been explicit about what he believes is happening. He says he is being blackballed, that despite having served his full suspension and having no active legal proceedings against him, no MLB organization has offered him a contract.
He has said he would play for the league minimum. He has said he has considered suing MLB.
He has said he knows the media and the league’s major brands dislike him but believes the broader baseball community wants to see him compete.
After his rough first start for the Ducks on April 21, four innings, five hits, two runs, he addressed the situation directly:
“So instead of being bitter about it, I want to come and enjoy the fans that are here and feel like I am accepted in American baseball, which I know I am. Logically, I know that I’m loved by the American baseball community. It’s just once you get to like the MLB level and the large brands in baseball and the media, they just hate me.”
Ducks manager Lew Ford framed it less combatively after that same debut, “You’re talking about a guy who was at the top of the game. Is he back there? No, but he looked like a guy who could go out and compete.”
After Sunday, compete looks like an understatement. A no-hitter is a no-hitter.
A 1.64 ERA through two starts is a 1.64 ERA. Fifteen strikeouts in eleven innings is real production.
Whether any major league team will look at those numbers and make a call remains the question nobody has answered yet.
His next start for the Ducks is scheduled for Saturday, May 2, at home at Fairfield Properties Ballpark in Central Islip.
The Atlantic League is professional baseball. The no-hitter counts. The ERA counts. The strikeouts count. Whether they count to the 30 teams that have not signed him is a different matter entirely.
