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Eric Lauer delivers best start of resurgent 2025 season versus slumping Tigers: ‘He’s our unsung MVP’
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Photo credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images
Thomas Hall
Jul 25, 2025, 11:30 EDTUpdated: Jul 25, 2025, 11:55 EDT
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Fresh off a massive series win over the New York Yankees, it was off to Comerica Park for a pivotal four-game set versus the Detroit Tigers, with left-hander Eric Lauer taking the ball in Thursday’s series opener — and he kept the train rolling.
Lauer was exceptional for this team again, though he did allow a first-inning home run to Jahmai Jones to fall behind 1-0. But he reset and was brilliant the rest of the way en route to tossing eight innings of one-run ball. It was the second-longest start of his career, trailing only his stellar performance over 8.2 innings on July 10, 2018.
Just over seven years later, the 30-year-old southpaw looked the best he has all season.
Despite committing an early mistake, Lauer only surrendered four other hits the rest of the night, striking out six — reaching that mark for the fourth consecutive outing — on an efficient 97 pitches (71 strikes). He was also a soft-contact machine. Following Jones’ round-tripper, 21 balls were put in play against the Blue Jays’ starter, with 18 of them producing an exit velocity lower than 95 m.p.h. (anything above that is considered hard hit).
Thanks to the 11 runs of support Lauer received, Toronto has now come away victorious in seven of his last eight starts while improving to an AL-best 61-42 on the season and increasing the division lead to 4.5 games over New York.
From pitching in Korea last season to signing a minor-league deal with the Blue Jays over the winter, Lauer’s journey back to the majors has been nothing short of remarkable. It’s what heartfelt storybooks are made of. And he’s just getting started.
It’d be somewhat of an understatement to label the 6-foot-3 hurler as this team’s saviour. He’s been much more than that. He’s been their everything man. Since rejoining the starting rotation, the veteran lefty owns a 2.93 ERA and 2.98 FIP over his last eight starts, posting 47 strikeouts and only seven walks over 43 innings.
In that same span, Lauer leads all Blue Jays starters in fWAR at 1.2, with José Berríos the next closest at 0.5. That also puts him tied with Framber Valdez, Jacob deGrom and Janson Junk for the eighth-highest fWAR among qualified major league starters, behind a star-studded group featuring Paul Skenes (1.3), Joe Ryan (1.3), Zack Wheeler (1.7), Tarik Skubal (1.8) and Garrett Crochet (1.9).
“I can’t say enough about it. He’s our unsung MVP, there’s no doubt about it,” Ernie Clement told reporters post-game, including MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson. “He gives us a chance to win every time and then some. It’s special what he’s doing.”
Needless to say, the Blue Jays certainly wouldn’t boast the impressive record they do if not for Lauer’s sensational 2025 season. It’s hard to imagine where they’d be without him.
The days of him serving as a fill-in until someone better emerges are long gone. He’s officially part of this starting staff moving forward, and it’s easy to see the positive impact that’s had on him — both on and off the field.
“It’s a lot of fun coming to the ballpark every day. This is just a fun bunch of guys to be around,” Lauer said, “from the staff to the players. It’s just a great clubhouse. Everybody is jiving together and we’re having a lot of fun together. Winning makes everything better. We’re going to keep going as much as we can. This makes baseball fun. Baseball is fun when you win.”
It’s been a few seasons, but this is the version of Eric Lauer who became an integral piece of the Milwaukee Brewers’ rotation from 2021-22, posting a combined 3.47 ERA and 4.30 FIP with a 15.1-per-cent strikeout-to-walk rate difference across 53 games (49 starts).
They never won a single playoff round during Lauer’s tenure, though, and are still seeking their first post-season series win since 2018. For a Blue Jays organization that hasn’t advanced through the playoffs themselves since ’16, he’ll be looking for a change of fortune this October.

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