BOSTON — At the very end of his last start, a typically-smooth-and-efficient, 5.1-inning, one-run effort in a win over the Cleveland Guardians, Eric Lauer fell behind Carlos Santana, 2-0, and decided, ‘Screw it, I’m challenging him with a fastball.’
Lauer could’ve spotted it a little higher, he admits. Maybe that way Santana gets under it and pops it up. Maybe he catches it just off the barrel and the ball dies somewhere above left-centre field. Maybe he doesn’t do what he did, roping it nearly 400-feet over the wall, ending Lauer’s otherwise excellent outing on the foulest of notes.
As he handed a fresh ball immediately to his manager and made a bitter walk to the dugout, Lauer was pissed. Furious over spoiling a great outing — for his team, for himself — with his final pitch. That’s when Max Scherzer came up to him smiling.
“He was like, ‘That was exactly what you needed to do. Solo homers aren’t going to hurt you. We’re up by four. You don’t want to walk him. You challenge him with a fastball. You did the right thing,’” Lauer remembered. “In moments like that, I get this really intense feeling because I feel like I screwed up. And I was so close to something so good.
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“But Max helped me understand, it was still really good. It was the right thing to do — it was the right thing to challenge him. And it’s like, ‘All right, I can let myself breathe a little bit.’ I don’t have to be so mad about it.”
It’s moments like those that Lauer’s enjoyed the most over his two-month run with the Blue Jays, in which he’s gone from out-of-necessity call-up, to mop-up duty, to bullpen-day length option, to one of the team’s most consistent starters. It’s been a pleasantly surprising yet critically important development for a Blue Jays team that tapped out its starting depth about 45 minutes into the season.
And although Sunday’s start at Fenway Park won’t be one he’s keen to watch back — Lauer allowed three runs on seven hits over 4.1 innings in a 5-3 Blue Jays triumph over the Red Sox — it was a perfectly serviceable outing from a fifth starter, and could have been even better with a little better luck and a bit more adept defence played behind him.
Lauer coughed up a pair in the second, getting burned by Pesky’s Pole when Carlos Narvaez wrapped a 337-foot fly ball around it — the ball would have been a homer at only three other big-league ballparks — for a solo shot, before going on to give up a pair of hard-hit balls to Trevor Story and Ceddanne Rafaela that cashed another.
Nine of the next 10 were retired before another crossed in the fourth as Nick Sogard and Romy Gonzalez hit back-to-back doubles to left. And Lauer’s day ended a batter later when Roman Anthony’s lob to the Green Monster went in and out of Jonatan Clase’s glove for what was farcically scored a single.
It was an unfortunate way to end an outing. But ultimately, Lauer allowed only three balls in play at 100-m.p.h. or harder, got tagged for three hits with a .220 xBA or lower, and left with the lead having given up just three runs, tied for the most he’s allowed in any of his 12 outings this season. His ERA now stands at 2.60 and his opponent’s batting average at .206 — both within the 20 lowest MLB-wide among those to throw at least 45 innings.
Meanwhile, Toronto’s offence built an early lead with back-to-back loud solo shots from Addison Barger and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the first, then added on through a sequence of grindy plate appearances from the bottom of the order — resulting in three walks and two singles — to cash a couple more in the fourth.
Bo Bichette got on (ground-rule double), got over (Barger groundout), and got in (Nathan Lukes two-strike single) to plate one more in the fifth, as Yariel Rodriguez, Brendon Little, and Nick Sandlin held Boston’s offence scoreless from the time Lauer left until Jeff Hoffman jogged in for the ninth.
Three strikeouts later, the Blue Jays closed the book on a 4-2 road trip ahead of a compelling four-game series against the division-leading New York Yankees beginning at Rogers Centre on Monday. Just get a load of these scheduled starters:
Monday — Carlos Rodon vs. Max Scherzer
Tuesday — Max Fried vs. Kevin Gausman
Wednesday — Will Warren vs. Jose Berrios
Thursday — Clarke Schmidt vs. Chris Bassitt
Signed to a minor-league deal this off-season following a two-year odyssey in which nerve tightness caused a host of health issues throughout his arm, undermining his mechanics, command, velocity, and confidence, Lauer has spent his four starts since officially joining the Blue Jays rotation baffling opponents. His array of well-located fastballs, cutters, curveballs, sliders, and changeups have been sequenced purposefully and disguised via arm speed, tunnelling, and spin mirroring to confuse a hitter’s pattern recognition and falsely trigger their muscle memories to fire bats in wrong directions at inopportune speeds.
Or, as some might call it, pitching. To Lauer, that’s the biggest compliment you can offer. He’s a pitcher. Through and through.
“That’s what I am. That’s what I think my position should be. I don’t like the idea of just going out there and out-stuffing guys. That’s not pitching,” Lauer said. “That’s why I love talking to Max. He knows pitching to the highest, highest level. It feels so good when I’m talking to him and I’m like, ‘This is what I was thinking, this is where I’d like to go. If I throw this here, then I can run this pitch off of it.’ And just having him nod along and be like, ‘Yep, yep, that’s right, yep. That’s what I’d do.’ It’s the greatest feeling.”
Lauer, who missed the beginning of spring training awaiting the arrival of his son, Landon, has only been competing with the rest of the Blue Jays rotation for the last few weeks, yet can describe in profound detail the way each of his fellow starters has impacted him in such a short time.
Like Scherzer, Chris Bassitt’s been an encyclopedic source of pitching knowledge — someone to seek brutally honest post-start feedback from, run sequences through, and devise gameplans with that let pitchers like them with seemingly ordinary stuff thrive at the highest level.
Kevin Gausman’s offered insight into his mentality and competitive nature, sharing mindset cues that keep him intentful and assertive on good days and bad. Jose Berrios has been a superlative example of the physical commitment, dedication, and routines that allow a starting pitcher to go the better part of a decade without missing a start.
“Jose’s probably the guy I try to watch the most in the clubhouse as far as how he goes about his routine. He’s ‘The Machine’ for a reason. He’s beyond impressed me,” Lauer said. “Every one of those guys is so willing to share. And they’re brutally honest and blunt about it, too. Because you kind of have to be. And that’s what you want to hear. I love that. The group of guys that we have here, we have a little bit everything. You can learn in every single facet of the game from them.”
Having been on three minor-league deals and one in Korea over the last four years, Lauer is no stranger to assimilating in new clubhouses. It doesn’t always go smoothly. And when friction is presented, it’s easy to retreat into a shell and do what you have to do to get yours. You’re a minor-leaguer with a six-five ERA in your last big-league stint. How long are you going to be around anyway?
Lauer admits he was nervous entering the Blue Jays clubhouse this spring, lockering among four other starters with more than 45 combined years of big-league service time. Were they going to be the typical old, salty vets? Was he going to find out why they call the man Mad Max?
“Obviously, there’s a different level of respect for guys of that caliber. But from day one, they’ve talked to me like I belong, they’ve talked to me like I’m supposed to be here,” Lauer said. “And it’s just a really comforting thing to not have to go in every day and be like, ‘Oh, I have nobody to talk to because they’re all just veterans older than me that don’t want anything to do with me. They’re just worried about their career.’
“They want to help young guys. They want to help older guys. They want to help everybody succeed because they want the team to win. And I feel like that’s the best culture you can have. Everybody just wants to win collectively.”
There’s no denying Lauer’s been helping the Blue Jays do just that. They’ve now won each of the last five games he’s pitched in, and 9 of 12 this season. Among a crafty, dependable, veteran rotation that’s been the bedrock of this team for years, he hasn’t stuck out like he thought he might. He’s fit right in.
