What Team Is Eric Lauer On?
Eric Lauer plays for the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Brewers executed a four-player trade with the San Diego Padres in November 2019, sending Trent Grisham, a budding star outfielder, and a reliable rotation presence in Zach Davies to San Diego in exchange for Luis Urias and Eric Lauer.
The Brewers believed they were getting a quality left-handed rotation piece in exchange for their future shortstop.
Things didn’t appear to be that way in 2020. Urias struggled early on and missed time, enabling Orlando Arcia to handle most of the shortstop chores.
Lauer was also sidelined by an injury, and when he returned, he only appeared in four games, going just 11 innings and posting a 13.09 ERA.
Many fans dismissed Lauer (and Urias, for that matter) as a poor choice. The fact that Grisham won a Gold Glove and had a breakout year for San Diego in 2020 didn’t help matters.
Eric Lauer was the sixth starter in the first part of the season, rising up and starting for significant stints as the Brewers tried to give each of their starters more rest after a truncated season.
Early in June, he had a couple of bad outings, including one in which he allowed seven runs in only two innings against Detroit, but he was otherwise quite good in that capacity.
Lauer has a 2.45 ERA in 22 innings during five appearances in April and May.
After that, he had a tough period from June 1st to June 20th, when he had a 9.00 ERA in 16 innings.
Lauer, on the other hand, has been one of the Crew’s finest pitchers since June 27th, even if he doesn’t go as deep into games. Lauer has a 1.53 ERA, a.181 batting average against, and a.501 opponent OPS in his previous 35.1 innings.
In six of his last seven starts, Lauer has allowed no more than one earned run. The only time he didn’t was against the Royals on July 21st, when he gave up two runs on four hits.
Lauer doesn’t have the same level of trust or name recognition as the Brewers’ top three starters, but he’s been pitching just as well recently.