TORONTO — Brett Lawrie and the Toronto Blue Jays will base their appeal of the third baseman’s four-game suspension on the fact that he didn’t intend to hit umpire Bill Miller with his helmet and on the location of two controversial strike calls that touched off the incident.
Major League Baseball handed down its verdict on Lawrie’s "aggressive actions" during batting practice Wednesday afternoon, but the ban will be held in abeyance until an appeal is heard by executive vice-president, administration John McHale Jr., possibly next week via teleconference.
Once that is scheduled Lawrie, likely accompanied by a union representative and possibly his agent, will get a chance to "explain my side of the story about what happened (Tuesday) night," when he erupted in a Hulk-like fit of rage after Miller rung him up on a debatable 3-2 pitch, whipping his helmet into the turf and watching it bounce up and hit the umpire in the hip.
"I expected a suspension," Lawrie said after being called into manager John Farrell’s office by GM Alex Anthopoulos during batting practice to be informed of the ruling.
His defence?
"In a nutshell that I didn’t mean to hit him," replied Lawrie. "Obviously actions kind of took over, and it’s just one of those things."
While Lawrie — treading carefully ahead of an apology he planned to offer Miller, who was umpiring third base Wednesday night — didn’t mention the 3-1 and 3-2 strikes from Fernando Rodney that led to his blow up, Anthopoulos hinted the two pitches would come up.
"Everyone has the right to discuss to the league about balls and strikes," he said. "The (umpires) are obviously doing their best, but at the same time, tight game, AL East team, there’s a competitiveness there that’s understandable. You can get upset at times at balls and strikes."
Lawrie was ahead in the count 3-1 when he took an outside fastball he assumed was ball four, and was sprinting to first base when Miller called it a strike. He stopped and paused on the baseline, walking back slowly with an irritated look on his face that may have irked Miller.
Rodney followed with a high changeup that may have been just above the zone but was called a strike, leading Lawrie to lose it after he was ejected. Farrell had to restrain him and joined his player in getting tossed shortly after.
"The only thing I regret is the helmet hitting him," said Lawrie. "I never meant to do that and it shows, I threw it off the ground, it took a bad hop and it hit him just totally by accident. I never meant to throw it at him.
"It seems like a lot of people are saying I threw it at him, I never threw it at him, I don’t have any intentions of hurting anyone. I was just frustrated at the play at the time and that’s baseball for you."
