As Blue Jays adapt rotation on the fly, Eric Lauer embraces the challenge

MIAMI — On the morning of July 31, when the Toronto Blue Jays acquired Shane Bieber from the Guardians for pitching prospect Khal Stephen, Eric Lauer was at least a little surprised.

The Blue Jays already had five effective starting pitchers — and he was emerging as one of them. Adding a sixth starting pitcher to an already strong five-man rotation would change things, and everyone in that rotation knew it.

“I was not in the headspace of like, ‘Hey, we’re going to go after a starter,’” he recalled Sunday morning, in the visiting clubhouse at loanDepot Park. “But obviously you get a guy like Shane Bieber, I’m not going to be mad about that. That’s a damn good pitcher. When you have a staff that’s collectively doing well, it’s like, We don’t want to mess it up. We don’t want to throw a wri