{"id":678168,"date":"2026-04-18T06:25:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/678168\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T06:25:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:25:18","slug":"blue-jays-eric-lauer-on-following-an-opener-i-hate-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/678168\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays’ Eric Lauer on following an opener: ‘I hate it’"},"content":{"rendered":"

To say that Eric Lauer<\/a> didn’t enjoy coming out of the bullpen behind an opener on Friday would be an understatement.<\/p>\n

After working five innings of three-run ball against the Arizona Diamondbacks and taking the loss, Lauer voiced his frustrations with the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>‘ decision to have Braydon Fisher pitch the first inning \u2014 rather than let the 30-year-old operate as a regular starter.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely different. To be real blunt, I hate it. I can’t stand it,” Lauer told reporters after a 6-3 Blue Jays loss. “You work with what you got. Part of it, too, we’re trying to mix some things up. We’re trying to find ways to win, so I think it’s a game plan we had, and I think we went out there and tried to execute the best we could.<\/p>\n

“That’s really all you can do.”<\/p>\n

The plan appeared to work out of the gates for the Blue Jays, as Fisher worked a scoreless first inning, allowing just one hit before turning the ball over to Lauer in the second.<\/p>\n

From there, Lauer looked to get back on track from a pair of rough outings. The 30-year-old didn’t allow a runner past first in the second or third against the Diamondbacks, but ran into trouble after that.<\/p>\n

After Toronto took a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth, Nolan Arenado delivered a quick response for Arizona with a solo shot off Lauer. Then, in the fifth, Corbin Carroll and Jose Fernandez brought home two more runs off Lauer, giving the Diamondbacks a lead of their own.<\/p>\n

And while Lauer went on to work a scoreless sixth, it didn’t change his opinion on the opener strategy.<\/p>\n

“It messes with your pre-game routine,” he said. “We’re creatures of habit. It changes the rhythm and routine. It’s a little harder to time things out…<\/p>\n

“You can make it work the best you can. Hopefully, it’s not something that we will continue doing. But that’s above my pay grade.” <\/p>\n

The three earned runs actually lowered Lauer’s ERA to 7.13 on the season. <\/p>\n

The eight-year MLB veteran has had a tough go of things following his nine-strikeout performance to open the season.<\/p>\n

Lauer surrendered nine combined runs between his starts against the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins \u2014 the first of which was limited to two innings by a bout of the flu.<\/p>\n

If the Blue Jays stay on turn for their next trip through the rotation, Lauer’s next start will come on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To say that Eric Lauer didn’t enjoy coming out of the bullpen behind an opener on Friday would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,2554,4,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-678168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-bluejays","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","14":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116424285749397672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}