CLEVELAND — While most baseball fans in Northeast Ohio will be paying close attention to what is happening between the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins, sections of Lorain and Portage counties will have their eyes on another afternoon Opening Day game.
When the San Diego Padres take the field at Petco Park against the San Francisco Giants later today, they will hand the ball to 23-year old left-hander Eric Lauer, a graduate of Midview High School and product of Kent State University.
“I always thought of it as a baseball holiday,” Lauer said, according to the Padres’ team website, after the announcement was made. “It’s always been one of the biggest days of the year for me. To be able to actually get to play baseball on that day will be something really cool.”
Fast-tracked through San Diego’s minor-league system, Lauer combined for a 9-10 record and 2.93 ERA over 37 appearances, with 36 starts, in three years combined with the Tri-City Dust Devils (Single A Short Season), Fort Wayne TinCaps (Single A Full Season), Lake Elsinore Storm (Advanced Single A), San Antonio Missions (Double A) and El Paso Chihuahuas (Triple A).
An early-season call-up last year, Lauer posted a 6-7 record with a 4.34 earned run average over 112.0 innings of work in 23 appearances, all starts, for the Padres. Lauer allowed 127 hits, 61 runs, including 54 earned, and 15 home runs, but had a better-than two-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio (100 to 46).
Lauer made three appearances, including two starts, in spring training this year and allowed only two hits and no earned runs over 10.0 innings.
“I would’ve been perfectly happy if Joey (Lucchesi) was Opening Day,” Lauer said. “We wanted to be 1 and 2. From the season he had last year, he definitely deserved it, but they made the decision, and we made it as hard as possible on them.”
Lauer was a first-round pick of the Padres in the 2016 MLB Draft after a standout junior season at Kent State University.
Lauer was named the Collegiate Baseball National Player of the Year, College Baseball Hall of Fame Pitcher of the Year and a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award after posting a 10-2 record with a nation-best 0.69 earned run average.
Lauer’s ERA was the lowest in college baseball in more than three decades.
Prior to his Kent State career, Lauer starred at Midview High School in Grafton. In leading the Middies to conference championships in 2012 and 2013, Lauer was a team captain, as well as an All-Lorain County, all-conference and first-team All-Ohio honoree, team MVP, Pitcher of the Year and the Lorain County Division I Player of the Year.
Following his senior season at Midview, Lauer entered the 2013 First-Year Player Draft and was taken by the Toronto Blue Jays with the 505th pick, but did not sign with the team, choosing instead to play for Kent State.
“Guys come up here and just try to survive,” Lauer said. “You can try to survive for so long, but at some point, you just have to be a doer. You have to push the envelope. Once you get comfortable, you start pushing the envelope a little bit.
“I’m at the point where I’m comfortable in the clubhouse, comfortable with these guys, comfortable at this level. Now, it’s time to start doing it and pushing it a little bit.”
