Eric Lauer had one thought above all others as he watched Cal Quantrill finish off the sixth inning with the last of his 12 strikeouts in a May 2 game.

“Damnit! Now I have got to get 13 just to beat him.”

That is pretty much what the Padres knew the result of this pairing would be, with the two pitchers they selected in the first round of last year’s draft pushing each other along the fast track to San Diego.

“I want him to do good, because it forces me to do better,” Lauer said.


Said Quantrill: “I hope Eric is in the big leagues soon; I just want to be there with him. It’s a good feeling having a little pressure like that. … It makes the team better. Three years ago, you think (Zack) Greinke was angry because he was starting behind (Clayton) Kershaw?”

It is in this competition playing out in the starting rotation of the Single-A Lake Elsinore Storm that the seeds of a culture are showing their first fruit.

“That’s how this thing has been designed,” Padres General Manager A.J. Preller said this week. “Cal goes out and throws well, Eric wants to do better than him. ... At any level, when you have guys pushing each other that are wired competitively, that’s when you get the best performances.”

In this limitless new world for Padres prospects, Quantrill and Lauer are not alone on the express lane on-ramp. Storm rotation mate Joey Lucchesi, last year’s fourth-round pick, is third in the Cal League with a 2.51 ERA. There are several young pitchers in the system — at low-A, recovering from injury or awaiting the start of the rookie league season.


But it’s a decent bet Quantrill and Lauer are the first two prospects from the most celebrated class of acquisitions in Padres history that could actually become Padres.

If all goes according to plan – health, performance – Quantrill and Lauer will move on this summer, likely to Double-A San Antonio. It’s possible they end up in Triple-A El Paso by year’s end. Regardless, the expectation/hope is that next spring they are challenging for a spot on the major-league roster.

It’s working out accordingly so far, not quite one-third of the way through their first professional season.

The right-handed Quantrill, who in that May 2 game struck out rehabbing Dodgers Logan Forsythe (three times) and Joc Pederson (once), was the Padres’ first pick last June, eighth overall. He has a 3.19 ERA in eight starts.


Lauer, the team’s third first-round choice at 25th overall, has a California League-leading 1.97 ERA in his eight starts. Three earned runs allowed in five innings Wednesday ended a stretch of three games (19 innings) without allowing a run for the lefty.

Their early success is both difficultly gauged and possibly negligible.

Eight games in high Single-A “is not a good representation,” Quantrill said.

It’s what he said immediately before and after that acknowledgement that indicate why the Padres believe their two first-round picks from a year ago possess minds every bit as advanced as capable as their arms.


“Most important,” he said, “is winning over the course of the year and pitching over the course of the year, not getting hurt, showing up every day with the tight attitude.”

And then:

“It’s 15, 20, 30 games at a couple different leagues over the course of a season. That’s proof that maybe you’re ready.”

That’s rare, Quantrill’s cognition of where he is at and how quickly he believes he can get somewhere else – and what it will take to make the journey.


The same awareness is plainly evident in Lauer.

“This year it’s been a lot more eye-opening how disciplined hitters have gotten in pro ball and how much better they are than in college,” he said. “It’s realizing you have to fill up the zone, you have to throw strikes. You will walk a bunch of people if you don’t throw strikes. … I have to develop my pitches a little more, get them a little sharper, a little more consistent. I need to work on controlling the run game a little better. I need to keep throwing the way I am, grinding it out and eating up innings.”

There is both assuredness and humility about Lauer and Quantrill that is undoubtedly inherent but also partially owes to their experience. Where so many of the Padres’ top prospects in this massive building project are in their teens, just out of high school or signed from the Caribbean or Venezuela, Quantrill turned 22 in February and Lauer will do so next week.

Quantrill essentially pitched only his freshman season at Stanford. After leading the Cardinal in innings pitched and starts and being named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and a freshman All-American, he underwent Tommy John surgery early his sophomore season (March 2015) and did not pitch his junior year. Still, he walked in graduation ceremonies three days after being drafted by the Padres.


“Anyone can do that,” Lauer said. “You take two years off baseball and you just do school, anyone can do that. I think he did it on purpose. I know he did it. He knew what he was doing. He had a good freshman year and said, ‘I’m cool.’ ”

Lauer can talk like that. He maintained a 3.7 grade-point average and earned his degree while playing all three years at Kent State.

“I’m sure he is,” Quantrill said when told of Lauer’s assertion he is the smarter of the two. “He’s left-handed. You’ve got to let those guys have some things.”

Quantrill and Lauer met in San Diego shortly after they were drafted and were roommates in the instructional league last summer. They live with separate host families in Lake Elsinore but spend a lot of time together.


“We knew both were on the same track,” Lauer said. “We knew what we had to do to move up. We just decided we’re going to try to run through this thing as fast as we can.”

Both are insightful beyond their years and freely offer introspection. Quantrill, in particular, speaks like a man who has lived longer and is an engineer (which was his college major). The influence of his father, Paul Quantrill, who pitched 14 seasons in the majors, including 22 games with the Padres in 2005, is clear.

Lauer is a little more of a cut-up.

Of first meeting Quantrill, he said, “I thought he was going to be a bigger dude. He’s a skinny little guy. He does his job. I don’t know how he does it. He does it.”


In the next breath Lauer is thoughtful.

“It’s fun to see how different people pitch and get people out,” he said. “I don’t pitch the same as Cal. I don’t pitch the same as Joey. None of us pitch alike, but we have to get the same people out. We like to talk about how we get people out and how can get more people out.”

Why it’s important to know who they are and what they talk about and how they approach the game is those things are integral to the Padres’ development strategy. Of course, a player has to be good enough. He also has to be able to handle being as good as the Padres expect.

“We try to be pretty clear and transparent with everybody that we’re drafting them to be Padres,” Preller said. “We let them know, ‘There’s opportunity in front of you. It doesn’t have to be five years down the road three years down the road. It’s on you. We’re going to push you and challenge you. We’ll move you as fast as you’re ready to move.”


That is the challenge Quantrill and Lauer clearly are embracing.

kevin.acee@sduniontribune.com