Lauer's velocity lacking 'extra little zoom'

MILWAUKEE -- Eric Lauer’s zoom ball is not zooming. That’s a problem for a pitcher whom the Brewers believe has the talent to be one of the best left-handers in baseball when he’s right.

Lauer’s four-seam fastball -- or zoom ball, in the 27-year-old Ohioan’s preferred vernacular -- averaged 90.8 mph and topped out at 92.7 mph over four laborious innings during Saturday’s 6-0 loss to the Cardinals at American Family Field. The defeat in front of a sellout crowed of 43,077 fans snapped the Brewers’ six-game winning streak and, while Lauer attributed the issue to mere execution, it added a layer to the worry that something is not quite right.

“Yeah, his velocity is down from last year,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “I thought the first inning was pretty good. He touched 93 [mph], which is the kind of a normal first inning we saw last year. But he was not able to hold onto it throughout the start. And that's where he's been at since Spring Training.”

What does Lauer make of the radar gun readings?

“That’s never been something that's been a huge bother for me if it's not there,” Lauer said. “It's always been kind of that I can pitch at any speed, it's just a matter of how hard it wants to come out. It's, to me, more of execution and finishing problem rather than, ‘Oh, let me just try to throw harder.’

"There's a lot of pitches that I can think of where there just wasn't that little snap at the end or there wasn't that extra little zoom. It's just execution. It's just finishing the pitches.”

Lauer proved his beliefs by going 18-12 with a 3.49 ERA over the past two seasons and came into this year with high confidence. His Spring Trainings always looked a little shaky, but this year that was particularly the case; he surrendered 15 earned runs on 22 hits over 11 2/3 innings in Cactus League action and spoke of his mechanics being slightly out of whack.

Lauer hoped he’d remedy that in the regular season, and his debut on April 2 at Wrigley Field looked good in the box score. He held the Cubs to two earned runs on five hits and two walks in 5 1/3 innings, with six strikeouts. His fastball, however, averaged 90.1 mph -- the lowest average for any of Lauer’s 59 outings in a Brewers uniform.

In top form, that fastball sits around 94 mph. In his 29 starts last season, Lauer’s average fastball never dropped below 92 mph, and it topped out at 94.2 mph in a May 14 start at Miami. He threw his fastest fastball in a Brewers uniform during that start: 96.5 mph for a called third strike.

But with Saturday’s outing against the Cardinals, this season has already produced two of the three lowest average fastball readings of Lauer’s four years with Milwaukee. The Brewers really need him now; left-hander Aaron Ashby underwent shoulder surgery on Friday and will miss most of the season, if not all of it. And the club’s other depth option, Adrian Houser, is rehabbing a groin injury.

“I think velocity for somebody that has the type of fastball that Eric has, it matters,” Counsell said. “When you're pitching at the top of the zone a lot, that's the difference between a ball you can get under that's a fly ball and a ball that gets hit good.”

Is it simply a matter of mechanics?

“Well, we don't know the cause,” Counsell said. “But yeah, certainly Eric has voiced that, just not being quite in sync. Health wise, he feels good.”

On Saturday, the Cardinals put their leadoff hitter on base in each of the first three innings against Lauer and scored two runs in a 27-pitch first and four runs in the third, when Nolan Arenado hit a changeup for a two-run shot and his 300th career home run. Then, rookie Jordan Walker connected with a high and tight fastball for another two-run home run later in the inning with two outs.

The Brewers had chances to get back in the game, but twice left the bases loaded with Christian Yelich bouncing out in the third inning and Luke Voit striking out in the eighth. Milwaukee lost at home for the first time this season.

“It’s a very solid lineup,” said Lauer of St. Louis. “ I think ‘Woody’ [fellow Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff] kind of ticked them off yesterday, so they came out swinging and they were ready to go.”