Downright Restorative

I'm sure it's like this for other sports as well, but sometimes I marvel at how downright restorative and cleansing baseball can be.  It's a bit of a cliche to say "You got to shake it off, because tomorrow's a new game" but games like the last two really make it seem real.

The Jays were low after that Tampa series.  The Lawrie "helmet humiliation" was really just the ultimate incident of ugliness,  where the errors piled up and the offence remained dormant over two disappointing games.

Then the Yankees rolled into town and I was uncertain. They were going to face Kyle Drabek, who had had "tomato face" moments in his two previous starts. "Tomato face" is what happens when he loses his command and it reflects in his pigmentation. But Drabek pitched so well, Mark Teixeira compared him to Roy Halladay. But the way Tex has been hitting, he probably tells himself that to make the nights a little less sleepless. Johnson, Arencibia, Encarnacion and Bautista all hit homers and the Jays won 8-1.

Drew Hutchison pitched in the second game, and Yan Gomes, making his MLB debut, was the first Brazilian in the bigs. Brett Lawrie decided to drop the appeal of his four game suspension and began serving it last night. There was quite a bit of speculation as to why he dropped the suspension, but as I see it, it's pretty straight forward. He missed one game versus the Yankees and he'll miss the Mets series. Lawrie wants to get the whole thing settled and move on, and this way, he gets to hang out at home and still be close to the team. Or as he puts it, "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."

So even without Lawrie, the Jays beat the Yankees to sweep the series.  Judging by the fact that he has five homers in the last seven games, including an absolute bullet over the left field fence on Wednesday, I think Jose Bautista has gotten out of whatever funk he was in and will finally make my dreams of the "Dominican Dynamic Duo" come true. Hutchison walked four, but went six innings and kept the Yankees to one run off just five hits. He was also eerily composed. Teixeira started to say Hutchison reminded him of Halladay, until Jeter silenced him with a look.

Yan Gomes was born in Sao Paulo, but moved to Miami as a teenager. Arencibia, also from Miami, says “He’s a great kid. He grew up in a tough high school. His high school was no joke, so you know he’s tough. He’s a guy I knew was genuinely a good kid who wanted to get better, and you could see it.”

I find Arencibia calling him a kid, even though Gomes is just a little younger than he is to be very endearing.

In other news, Adam Lind was sent to Las Vegas to try to work out whatever his problem is or just hang out till he gets traded. I'm sure he will punish and destroy PCL pitching, which I guess the Jays hope will cure what ails him.  May all your ponds be called "The Pond."

The Mets are in town to start Interleague play. Stupid flippin' Interleague play is it's official name.