Toronto Blue Jays' Brett Lawrie (L) stretches in front of umpire Bill Miller before his team plays the New York Yankees in their MLB American League game in Toronto, May 16, 2012.Mark Blinch/Reuters
Believing it was just time to move on, Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Brett Lawrie has had a change of heart and has decided against appealing the four-game suspension he received for abusing an umpire with his batting helmet earlier this week.
As a result, the energetic Canadian will sit out the first game of his penalty Thursday night when the Blue Jays wrapped up their mini two-game set against the New York Yankees at Rogers Centre "I'm going to be going crazy walking around," Lawrie told reporters before Thursday's game.
Lawrie was handed a four-game suspension by Major League Baseball after he rifled his batting helmet into the ground in anger after a called strike by home plate umpire Bill Miller during the ninth inning of Tuesday's game against the Tampa Bay Rays.
The batting helmet bounced up and struck Miller's hip.
It was obvious that Lawrie never intentionally meant to hit Miller with the helmet and said he intended to appeal the penalty when it was announced just before game time on Wednesday.
The appeal was to be heard on Tuesday, which meant that Lawrie would be available to continue to play up until that time.
On Thursday, after having had the opportunity to apologize personally to Miller for his actions prior to Wednesday's game, Lawrie decided to drop his appeal.
"Getting it [the suspension]reduced, it was a coin flip," Lawrie said. "We didn't know if they were going to reduce the game or whatnot.
"So I think it's just easy enough just to kind of suck this one up and take these four games and kind of move on down the road."
Yan Gomes, who was promoted from Triple-A Las Vegas prior to the game to fill the roster spot of Adam Lind, who was optioned to Triple A, was slated to make his Major League debut at third against the Yankees.
"He's a hard-nosed player," was how Toronto manager John Farrell described Gomes. "I'd say he's kind of a blue-collar type of guy that has never had anything given to him. His ascent to the Major Leagues has been clearly earned on his part."