Blue Jays 8, Orioles 2: Brett Lawrie Makes Me Want to Shoop

Here I go; here I go; here I go again. 

He is the best! 


In his twenty-six big league games, Brett Lawrie's slash line is .340/.392/.713/1.105 with six doubles, four triples, and now seven home runs after cracking the game-winning two-run shot in the eighth. There were worries about his glove coming into the year, but look, I'm telling you, he's making all the plays, and he has a rifle of an arm, a rifle. I am just all the way in on Brett Lawrie, is what I am saying to you right now. I recognize that it is unlikely that he will sustain a 1.105 OPS throughout his major league career, but what if he did? Wouldn't you feel dumb for not getting excited about that when it first got going? That is egg that I simply will not have on my face. I won't have it. But you very well might, unless you get in on this immediately.


It is fortunate and good that Brett Lawrie decided to be amazing today, and also that Yunel Escobar was willing to get four hits, because Luis Perez stunk it up out there. That is not stunning; what is very close to stunning indeed is that the bullpen pretty much held the line the rest of the way, putting Lawrie in position to be the best guy. So, thanks!


The game was played before an announced but obviously bogus attendance of 11,617 after first pitched was moved up about seven hours so the Baltimore Grand Prix racing route could be finalized, or something. Look at this, though:

Big fun in Baltimore?

Paltry, man. Paltry. But baseball is baseball, and it is awesome whether forty thousand people show up or like eight people show up. Actually, if I may be frank with you for a moment, let me say that I actually wasn't actually nuts about the half dozen times a year the SkyDome would have a big drunk crowd of 40,000 or more. One felt, literally, crowded. There was nowhere to put your stuff, you know? Let alone your extra stuff. And you couldn't wander to other sections and just kind of see what was up. You know what is the perfect number? Like 24,000, somewhere around there. That's how many people I want to be with me at a ball game, tops. I want the lower levels to be nicely filled up, and then I want some room to put my feet up in the upper deck and just spread out and be with my people (but not that near my people), the deeply odd people of the 500s. I want there to be a guy a section over who is totally just completely reading the paper, a study in leisure from another era. On a darker note, I want plenty of room between me and my Mr. Sub-devouring nemesis and his poor unfortunate potato of a ladyfriend. I also want Maureen the usher to have to come over like two sections to say "hello" to us, just because it makes me feel special that she comes all that way. That's vanity, but I'll admit to it. I liked it when that happened. Yes, it can be totally exciting for the place to be packed with, like, a teeming mass of humanity, I get that, and I'm not saying that you don't need that -- I would absolutely miss that if it never happened; I'm not made of stone -- but that's really not the day-to-day of baseball, and it is the day-to-day where baseball really shines.


Anyway, in Baltimore today you pretty much could have had this guy right here as your private dancer.

Big fun in Baltimore!

KS