Crawford Shows Shades of Paul Blair

by Matthew Taylor

Carl Crawford's five hits in Tuesday night's ALCS Game 4 - including two doubles and a triple - matched the effort of former Oriole Paul Blair, according to ESPN.

"Crawford joined Paul Blair of the 1969 Baltimore Orioles and Hideki Matsui of the 2004 Yankees as the third player to amass five hits in a League Championship Series game, and Aybar chased Wakefield from the game with a gargantuan homer onto Lansdowne Street in the third."

Blair trailed only Brooks Robinson (.500 average) in batting for the O's during the 1969 ALCS, hitting .400 with a .471 on-base percentage and a .733 slugging percentage. Blair's five-hit day came in the Game 3 ALCS clincher against the Twins that the O's won 11-2. He finished the day 5-for-6 with a home run, two doubles, and five RBIs.