Homering on the first pitch after missing over two months is a masterful power move and I'm here for it

By Adrian Garro @adriangarro

June 17, 2019

Angels outfielder Justin Upton did something in Monday night's game against the Blue Jays that just had to feel good: He hit a home run.

But not just "a home run" in the general, everybody-is-hitting-homers-all-the-time kind of way we've seen this season. No, this was special for Upton, who was making his 2019 season debut after suffering turf toe in a preseason exhibition game. Facing Edwin Jackson, Upton wasted no time at all by crushing a solo shot on the very first pitch he saw:

Well that didn’t take long... pic.twitter.com/9UXejAARxR

— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) June 17, 2019

Is there a better way than this to exorcise the frustrations of having been forced off the diamond for more than two months? I'm not sure there is. And from a scale of "just take some pitches and work the count" to "crush a dinger," I bet this was Upton's perfect imagined scenario for his return to the field.

It's like the jock in the high school comedy who crashes into the party -- four hours late, naturally, well after everybody else was already there -- and immediately assumes everybody's attention and focus.

"I'm here, now let's have some fun," or some movie cliche along those lines, he'd exclaim. Upton did the baseball version of that.

Upton rejoining a stacked Angels lineup that already features surprise slugger Tommy La Stella, along with Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, Albert Pujols and the rest of the crew, means there could be plenty more of these moments the rest of the summer.