Six more strong innings for Demon baseball great Brian Lawrence.
The 1998 Southland Conference Pitcher of the Year had his second consecutive impressive outing Sunday in Cactus League action for the Colorado Rockies.
Continuing his comeback from shoulder surgery that sidelined him for the entire 2006 MLB season – just when he was beginning to make a decimal-point salary – Lawrence earned headlines Sunday (“Lawrence has quality outing vs. D-Backs,” said www.mlb.com) and raised his stock with his new team.
He threw six innings, allowing only five hits and three earned runs, two on solo home runs by Arizona outfielder Eric Byrnes. Lawrence struck out four.
The Rockies already have settled on a five-man starting rotation to open the season next week. Lawrence is probably headed to Triple A so he will get regular starts for the first 2-4 weeks. If he keeps doing his thing, he’ll be in the Rockies’ rotation quickly; if I read the tea leaves correctly.
“I think they want me to pitch a few more times, every fifth day, before they are assured (the arm) is where they want it to be. But as far as I’m concerned, I feel awesome. I can’t ask for it to feel better than it does,” he said afterward.
Lawrence wasn’t signed by the Rockies to be an insurance policy, or a minor leaguer. He’s won 10 games or more in three of his last four big league seasons, all with the San Diego Padres. Having just signed a big deal (by our standards, not by MLB standards) with the Washington Nationals, he injured his right (pitching) shoulder on the first day of spring training last year, had surgery, and felt he was back to full speed by October. Still, the Nats let him go instead of paying him more than $3 million, nearly double his 2006 pay.
He was sharp last week in a win over the Cubs as previously noted on the Daily Demon.
By the way, in the “it’s a small world after all” department: remember Tracy Renck, who covered NSU sports for the Alexandria Town Talk from 1995-97? His twin brother Troy is one of the beat writers covering the Rockies for the Denver Post. Tracy and his wife are settled back home in Pueblo, Col., where he works for the paper there. I don’t know if Tracy ever covered Brian as a Demon – Lawrence was here in 1997 and 1998.
Doug Ireland, SID
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