Toronto Blue Jays slugger Brett Lawrie apologized later for his tantrum, and he seemed to mean it, but video of him slamming his batting helmet to the ground and it hitting umpire Bill Miller in the right hip is incriminating. Lawrie deserves a long suspension, and one is likely.

Adding to the miserable ending of Miller's night, a disgruntled fan in the stands at Rogers Centre tossed a mostly full cup of beer and hit Miller in the right shoulder (video swiped by Deadspin) as he walked off the field. No matter how poorly Miller might have called the final two pitches of Lawrie's at-bat — strike two appeared to catch even less of the zone than strike three — he doesn't deserve either reaction.

[Related: Astros' Carlos Lee shaken up after collision with umpire]

Umpires don't need the league to protect them from their own poor performance, but they do need protection from players and fans (or anyone) who flies off the handle. Miller seemed remarkably measured in his postgame comments:

''Upon seeing that he was ejected, he took several steps toward me and fired his helmet. It hit me in the right hip,'' Miller said.

''That's a bit extreme,'' Miller said.

It was, though Lawrie had stopped going berserk by the time reporters reached him:

Umpires (usually) are an extension of the playing field in Major League Baseball. If a ball hits an ump in fair territory, the fielder must be ready to play the ball as if it hit a pebble on the ground, or the second base bag. Reaction time is key. In that vein, if a fielder stumbles during a play and — say — runs into an umpire, he runs the risk of getting elbowed in the face if he's not careful.

That's what happened to Carlos Lee of the Houston Astros after he tried to play a sharp grounder hit by Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies in the first inning Tuesday afternoon. After the ball went off his mitt, Lee's stumbling momentum carried him into first base umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, who tried to brace for impact but was sent tumbling on his backside anyway. But not before he accidentally (it's assumed) stuck an elbow in Lee's left eye.

(AP, BLS Illustration)

The Baseball Think Factory Newsblog noted an observation that Philadelphia Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon made in Sports Illustrated this past week about his new home city.

Something that would seem to be a ... unique ... observation:

"Philadelphia has a cool feel to it, man,'' Papelbon says. "It's a vibe that the city produces. It makes you feel like you are in Paris. I've never been to Paris, but I've seen it in a lot of movies. I think [Philadelphia] is going to be a great place to live."

Ah, bon, Papelbon. He's "seen it in a lot of movies." Philadelphia is a lot of things — many of them great — but has calling it the Paris of the NL East ever crossed anyone's mind until the speech center in Papelbon's brain decided to blurt that out?

Well, has Papelbon been reading the Philly Post of Philadelphia Magazine?

The Juice is back for its fifth season of fun! Stop by each weekday for an ample serving of news from the action, plus great photos, stats and video highlights.

'You hit one of of ours,' etc.: Baseball players (and managers) forget nothing. Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers edged Ian Kennedy and the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-1 on Monday night, but the D-backs won 2-1 in brush-backs attempted on the other starting pitcher. In the third inning, Kennedy threw a pitch up and in to Kershaw, which drew a smile from the Dodgers lefty. Kershaw probably was recalling the time he hit Gerardo Parra in the elbow in September 2011 and was ejected by umpire Bill Welke. The D-backs obviously remembered, and Kennedy followed up in the same at-bat with another tight one that zipped behind Kershaw. Smile at that one, kid! Not willing to leave it there, Kershaw backed Kennedy off the plate in the fifth, throwing a pitch to the backstop. Both sides were warned by the home plate umpire. Both at-bats ended in walks, but neither one scored. The brushing back continued afterward with quotes.

Willie Bloomquist spoke for Arizona:

''He obviously didn't like it, so he came back at us. ... It's the game within the game. Nobody's trying to hurt anyone, it's just to prove a point. Baseball has a way of taking care of itself, so if it happens again, it'll happen again."

And Kershaw:

(2K Sports)

Chris Gilmore used his experience as a college baseball pitcher to help himself win $1 million in the MLB 2K12 Perfect Game Challenge tournament. That's a new twist to the classic tale of the kid claiming that playing "Donkey Kong" would aid hand-eye coordination to the parent.

No, Gilmore said in a phone interview, it's true.

The most recent Washington Nationals box score shows that teen sensation Bryce Harper went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. But that's misleading because his bat actually had a hit in it after all.

Yes, Harper's adjusted line should be 1-for-6 with three strikeouts and 10 stitches — the "1" being his own bloodied face, just above his left eye, after Harper hit it with a bat in frustration. Nats TV analyst F.P. Santangelo, in the "Give 'Em The Bird" video of the weekend below, says he saw Harper go into the dugout tunnel and come out looking like he had been in a minor one-car accident:

After making an out in the seventh inning of the Nats' 7-3 victory at Cincinnati, Harper said he slammed a bat on a wall and it bounced off his face. Just a rookie mistake, the 19-year-old says in the Washington Post. Won't happen again:

'You want some of this, D-Ro? (AP)

The seemingly unstoppable exuberance of Washington Nationals rookie Bryce Harper has claimed its first major-league victim. Behold, says manager Davey Johnson via the Washington Post, the power of a 19-year-old:

Mark DeRosa's progress returning from a strained left oblique muscle was stunted in an odd way, Johnson said. As Bryce Harper came into the dugout Sunday night after he stole home against the Phillies, DeRosa aggravated his oblique when Harper gave him a forceful high-five.

What are the Nationals going to do to tame Harper's unbridled enthusiasm? Is it because Harper has become so defensive of his beard? Are we sure he didn't also injure Jayson Werth's dangling wrist because he imagined that Werth's formidable facial hair "made a move"? If he didn't break Werth's wrist, Harper certainly must have "loosened the cap on the ketchup bottle" with his maniacal high-fiving of anyone with a Nats cap and five digits to spare. (OK, that's absurd.)

There is no denying, however, that Mark DeRosa is the unluckiest man on the face of the Earth. And he is made of the finest ceramics. Johnson did not confirm nor disconfirm this:

Just like he was Ken Griffey Jr. — only not quite as strong and with his helmet on forward — Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers hit a home run Thursday night that struck a second-floor window of the famous B&O Warehouse at Camden Yards. He hit six homers in the series, including four in the game on Tuesday night.

This one, though, hit a building 439 feet from home plate, becoming the 60th baseball to reach the fan pavilion on Eutaw St. since the park opened in 1992.

Watch the window just to the left of the right-field foul pole after the ball takes a hop:

What a pane. Baseball Time in Arlington asserts that the ball broke the window (which I want — even need — to believe ), but that can't be supported with certainty. If Hamilton had broken the window, I like to believe that he and the Baltimore Orioles on defense would have scattered like panicking 10-year-olds playing ball in the street after breaking a window in the neighborhood. "You'll pay for that, little Joshie Hamilton," the Old Man in the Warehouse would say.

It's funny, though, to hear the commentary of Tom Grieve on the Rangers broadcast, wondering what O's right-hander Tommy Hunter must have been thinking. Well, he can tell us himself (via MLB.com):