Milwaukee Brewers: Another Rough Outing for Eric Lauer

The Milwaukee Brewers acquired Eric Lauer in trade with the Padres over the offseason, and in his first two starts with the Crew, well, they’ve been rough.

One of the first moves that the Milwaukee Brewers made this past offseason was a trade with San Diego that sent Zach Davies and Trent Grisham to the Padres, while the Crew received Luis Urias and Eric Lauer.

The addition of Lauer gave the Brewers a much-needed left-handed arm in their starting rotation, as well as a player with a few years of team control left. Which, as we’ve seen, is something that GM David Stearns covets.

During his first two big-league seasons with the Padres, Lauer appeared in 53 games, 52 of which were starts, and posted a 4.40 ERA, a FIP of 4.35, and a 1.460 WHIP. He would also strike out 8.2 batters per nine and walk 3.3.

So far, in his short time with the Milwaukee Brewers, Lauer has made three appearances after returning from the COVID-19 injured list. The first came out of the bullpen against the Chicago Cubs, where he went 2.2 innings without giving up a run, striking out six, and allowing just one hit. However, his last two appearances have been starts, and they’ve been rough, to say the least.

Against Cincinnati about a week ago, Lauer labored through the second inning as he allowed six runs and put Milwaukee in an early hole. He would last just three innings that game, giving up six runs on five hits with three walks, a home run, and only two strikeouts.

Then on Wednesday night against Minnesota, Lauer was looking to bounce-back; however, that’s a tall task against a potent Twins’ offense. After making it through the first inning relatively easy, Lauer was once again bitten by the second inning.

While he wasn’t helped by a misplayed ball line-drive to Avisail Garcia and a ball that got by Omar Narvaez, ultimately, Lauer allowed five runs to the Twins that inning. Overall, he’d make it just 3.2 innings while allowing seven runs.

Lauer had this to say after the game (via ESPN):

"“It felt like there was a lot more just kind of bad baseball luck happening there,” Lauer said. “I was making some competitive pitches, wasn’t getting a whole lot of calls, just wasn’t attacking as much as I should have been.”"

As you’d expect from a pitcher giving up as many runs as Lauer is, he’s catching quite a bit of the middle portion of the strike zone this season. According to Fangraphs, he has a hard-hit rate of nearly 47 percent and a groundball rate of only 6.7 percent when his career average has been around the 38 percent mark.

What lies ahead for Lauer, we don’t know yet, but after back-to-back rough outings, he could be in danger of losing his spot in the starting rotation. Perhaps to Corbin Burnes, who has been very good this season.

On the flip side, if Lauer is given another shot, it’ll likely come next Tuesday against the Twins once again. Either way, after giving up 13 runs in only 6.2 innings as a starter, Lauer needs to find a way to right the ship, and quickly.