Brett Lawrie returns, leaves Blue Jays game with back injury

The Toronto Blue Jays were hoping for a boost from the return of Brett Lawrie, who was making his return from a broken finger. However, they were hoping his return would last more than three innings.

The Blue Jays third baseman was making his first appearance since June 22nd and immediately made his presence felt, singling in his first at bat. However, when rounding the base after the single, he appeared to pull up lame a bit and was removed from the game upon completion of the inning. Danny Valencia replaced him in the field and in the line-up.

Here is the official word from the good folks manning the Blue Jays Twitter account.

It’ll be interesting to see if Lawrie needs a few more days of recovery with this new injury. Regardless, it is a major blow for the Blue Jays, who were hoping Lawrie would provide more than just one at-bat.

However, it should be noted that manager John Gibbons went all Nostradomus on the situation and predicted the outcome earlier this week, as noted in our earlier post announcing the Lawrie activation.

"“Last year, we brought him back a couple of times without a lot of playing time down there and he suffered for it. We brought him back out of desperation, so he needs to get his timing back. I have to believe it’s at least a week.” – (H/T Gregor Chisholm, MLB.com)"

Someone give that man a prize…well, maybe not.