Milwaukee Brewers: Eric Lauer Gets Game 4 Start in Must Win

The Milwaukee Brewers find themselves in a must-win Game 4 matchup with the Atlanta Braves, who lead the NLDS series 2-1.

In the first three games, the Brewers have trotted out Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and Freddy Peralta, who combined to allow just three total runs, including none for Burnes and Peralta.

The bullpen has allowed four total runs over these three games, all of which have come off of Adrian Houser on a pair of home runs from Joc Pederson.

However, pitching hasn’t been the issue for the Milwaukee Brewers — it’s been quite good — the issue has been the offense—or lack thereof. Milwaukee has scored only two runs this series, both of which came off a Rowdy Tellez home run in Game 1. As a team, they are 0-16 with runners in scoring position.

So it’s important that the Milwaukee Brewers have another strong showing from those on the mound in Game 4. And starting for the Crew in this must-win game will be Eric Lauer, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

Lauer has consistently been the fourth-best member of this starting rotation this season. Over 118.2 innings of work, Lauer has logged a 3.19 ERA, a FIP of 4.04, and. WHIP of 1.138.

Since the All-Star break, he has been even better, posting a 2.50 ERA, a 3.19 FIP, and opponents have just a .574 OPS against the lefty.

In many key categories, it has been a career year for Lauer, who has relied more heavily on his slider, especially over the second half of the season. You can read more about that here.

Lauer pitched against the Braves one other time this season–all the way back on May 14th. He came out of the bullpen and pitched three innings allowing three earned runs on four hits. Given how long ago that was and the changes that Lauer has made, along with this Braves team looking different as well, there isn’t a whole lot that we can glean from that performance. Not to mention that it’s also a very small sample size.

For Atlanta, they will be bringing back Charlie Morton on short rest after he pitched Game 1 of this series. Morton was cruising through the Brewers’ batting order until he gave up the aforementioned home run to Tellez in the seventh.

It would appear that Milwaukee will choose to save Corbin Burnes for Game 5, if they get to that point.

Ultimately, if the Brewers are going to come back and win this series, one would think that the bats will have to come alive at some point, but that’s far from a given based on what we’ve seen through the first three games—meaning, that Lauer will likely need to keep this one close for the Crew to have a chance.