Bautista’s 15 Bombs Lead the Majors

I woke up this morning and could barely believe my eyes when I checked the stats page at MLB.com.

Here we are almost one third of a way through the season and Jose Bautista is leading the majors with 15 home runs. Somebody pinch me … seriously.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to find out just why Jose Bautista is out-slugging perennial home run hitters like Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez and Prince Fielder.


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While there isn’t one simple explanation, there are certainly a multitude of things that have contributed to his recent power surge, says Fantasy Baseball Junkie:

He’s hitting a lot of fly balls (50.4%), and a lot of those flyballs seem to be leaving the park (20%) so while I think he’s been a little lucky, he should still have been in line for 8-9 homeruns so far, well above what many were predicting.

Many pundits are screaming “sell high” but 25 homeruns seems inevitable, and he’s actually been unlucky when he hasn’t hit the ball out of the park with a low .234 BABIP (about 40 points less than his career norm).

Combine that with Bautista’s work in the off-season with hitting coach Dwayne Murphy and you have a serious home run threat hitter down in the number seven slot.

Of course, Jose Bautista’s .244 batting average is much left to be desired, however if we take a look purely at his statistics batting seventh in the lineup, you can see that a majority of his power comes from hitting there:

Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB
Batting 7th 25 25 100 84 20 24 6 1 10 23 12 17 .286 .390 .738 1.128 62

Take away those 10 games at the start of the season during the Bautista Leadoff Experiment, and Jose’s numbers shoot through roof.

Initially I was a little disappointed to see Jose Bautista moved out of the leadoff spot, but now that he’s settled in closer to the bottom of the lineup, I couldn’t think of a better place for him.

Who knows how long this hot streak will last, but trust me when I say that the Bautista Appreciation Society will be living every moment to its fullest.

Ian Hunter

Ian has been writing about the Toronto Blue Jays since 2007. He enjoyed the tail-end of the Roy Halladay era and vividly remembers the Alex Rodriguez "mine" incident. He'll also retell the story of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS to his kids for the next 20 years.

5 thoughts on “Bautista’s 15 Bombs Lead the Majors

  • May 26, 2010 at 8:56 pm
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    Step the next: Swap E5 and Gonzo in the order.

  • May 26, 2010 at 9:04 pm
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    Good idea Torgen, for the life of me I can't understand why Cito continues to run Encarnacion out there in the 9 spot when he would be better served to bump him up a couple of spots.

    If Cito moves Overbay down the lineup, maybe we'll see a domino effect with the lineup card and things might finally be shuffled around.

  • May 27, 2010 at 9:07 am
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    I definitely can't see Jose keeping this up for an entire year. If some silly team wants to offer the Jays a deal like the Indians got for Casey Blake (Carlos Santana), then the Jays should jump all over it.

  • May 27, 2010 at 12:50 pm
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    Hell yes, that would be awesome. Bautista's a free agent at the end of the season anyway, and if he keeps up this pace (or anything remotely close to him) he's going to command some good coin on the open market.

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