In the course of the last month, Jose Bautista has suggested the Toronto Blue Jays should have been more aggressive on the trade market and drawn pointed criticism from his manager after getting ejected from a crucial game. Along the way his team has lost all kinds of ground in the pennant race.
It’s been a rough month for the Blue Jays and their franchise player has faced plenty of criticism, some of it warranted and some of it misguided.
Amidst the frustration surrounding the Blue Jays’ struggles, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Bautista remains elite when it comes getting on base and hitting home runs. He homered for the fourth consecutive game Saturday, hitting a two-run shot that backed a tremendous outing from Drew Hutchison and allowed the Blue Jays (68-67) to beat the New York Yankees (70-64) 2-0 with a one-hitter in front of a sellout crowd at Rogers Centre.
Bautista now has 28 home runs, 82 RBI and a .284 batting average. He leads the American League with a .399 on-base percentage, and he entered the game with 4.2 wins above replacement, 23rd in all of baseball behind Yasiel Puig and Buster Posey. Simply put, you won’t find many players capable of providing this kind of offence.
“He’s a great hitter,” manager John Gibbons said. “Nobody does it from day one to the end of the season every day. It’s too hard a skill to master. The thing he does is strike fear into you. He can be struggling, but one swing of the bat can change the game … he’s always a threat.”
This is precisely the kind of season-long performance the Blue Jays needed from Bautista, who finished the 2012 and 2013 seasons on the disabled list. While this doesn’t quite compare to what Bautista did in 2010 and 2011, players don’t fluke their way into homers in four straight games; he remains among the elite.
“The bottom line is I like to contribute on a daily basis and ultimately I feel like I’ve been able to contribute,” Bautista said.
While Bautista’s home run provided the necessary offence, Drew Hutchison’s pitching performance was even more important for the Blue Jays Saturday. The right-hander completed seven shutout innings, allowing just one hit while striking out nine (he also walked two and hit two).
“I feel really good — I probably feel the best I have all year,” Hutchison said. “I’ve been able to get a good rhythm and I think that’s shown.”
For the second time this month, Hutchison allowed just one hit (a Mark Teixeira double) against an American League East rival. Considering that Hutchison threw just 35.1 innings last year and had pitched ineffectively for much of the past two months, the outing was encouraging for the Blue Jays.
“We’ve seen him good a lot of times this year, but it’s tough to be better than he was today,” Gibbons said, adding that the right-hander seems to have caught a second wind of late.
Aaron Sanchez closed the game out with two innings of shutout relief for the Blue Jays, and while Casey Janssen was warming up in the ninth inning, the closer never entered the game. Gibbons downplayed the decision to stick with Janssen, adding that he has spoken with Janssen about relying on others in select save situations. “The name of the game is win the game, right?” Gibbons said.
Facing an accomplished lineup — including Derek Jeter — in front of a packed house, Sanchez attempted to maintain the approach that’s allowed him to post a 1.66 ERA in his first 21.2 innings against big league hitters.
“I didn’t think about it as a save situation,” Sanchez said. ” I just took it as my second inning of work and just go out there and keep attacking hitters.”
A crowd of 45,863 was on hand to watch the Blue Jays and Jeter, who’s playing his final series in Toronto. The sellout — the Blue Jays’ 11th of the season — pushed the team’s attendance total past the two million mark with 14 home dates remaining.
That a 24-year-old and a 22-year-old could shut down the Yankees so convincingly provides plenty of hope for the Blue Jays. Bautista described Hutchison’s start as “unbelievable,” adding that “any time the pitching is going to do that, our chances of winning are pretty high.” Still, the right fielder prefers not to focus on 2015 just yet.
“I don’t want to talk about the bright future as if the season was over,” Bautista said. “I think they’re going to be able to help us win games the rest of this season and hopefully we win enough of them to get back in contention.”
One win can’t come close to erasing a month of disappointment, or inserting the Blue Jays back into the forefront of the playoff race. But thanks to a well-timed home run and Hutchison’s dominant outing, everything went about as well as the Blue Jays could ask for at least one afternoon.
And turbulent month or not, Bautista played an essential part in it all.