Jose Bautista’s on Fire

By now you probably know about my borderline worrisome obsession with Blue Jays utility man, Jose Bautista. Although he’s not a flashy player who intimidates the opposition, Bautista has more than lived up to expectations (however small they might have been to start the season).

Now in the midst of a hot streak since being moved down in the lineup, Bautista has been killin’ it.

In a combined 15 games split between the six and seven spot in the lineup, Jose has collected 13 base hits, 9 of which have been for extra bases. Hell, he hasn’t been drawing many walks, but that really doesn’t matter when Bautista is doing a phenomenal job of driving in runs.

I think more or less, the Bautista Leadoff Experiment ultimately accomplished what it was supposed to do: get Jose on base so Aaron Hill and Adam Lind could bring Bautista home. He was hitting .188 in the leadoff spot, but drew 11 walks which would ultimately lead to him crossing the plate 7 times.

The Jose Bautista issue has been a point of contention between myself and Drew at Ghostrunner on First. He is a firm believer that hot Aprils and Septembers are irrelevant, and that the stats between May and August are what really matter.

I on the other hand am happy with any sort of surge of offense, regardless of which horrible pitchers (ex. Jeremy Guthrie) or at what point in the season it happens.

In Bautista’s defense, we’re already a full four days into the month and he’s hit two home runs. Jose didn’t hit his second home run of the season until June 28th last year – now with six in total, Bautista is well on his way to surpassing last year’s totals.

Is Jose Bautista the real deal? Only time will tell. In the meantime, let’s enjoy his hot streak and hope that it continues through the season. Boom-shaka-laka!