TORONTO — It’s not entirely clear why Jose Bautista started this season the way he did.
Through his first 33 games, the right-fielder was striking out at his highest pace since he was a rookie nearly a decade and a half ago and walking at his lowest rate since an injury-shortened 2013. He suffered through two separate 0-for-20 stretches. His swinging strikes were soaring; his contact percentage was plummeting; he was seeing more pitches in the zone than he has in four years, an indication that opposition pitchers weren’t fearing him like they once did. And, with Bautista carrying a .174/.297/.256 line through those first 33, would you fear him either?
There were plenty of theories. Pitch-specific stats indicated he wasn’t catching up to fastballs the way he once did. Many wondered if perhaps, at 36, the two-time home run champ was experiencing a sharp decline. Bautista himself ruminated publicly about his displeasure with his current approach at the plate. And his manager, John Gibbons, pondered earlier this week if Bautista was chasing balls up in the zone too often, calling those pitches “tough to catch up with, I don’t care who you are.”
But something else Gibbons has asserted every time he’s been asked about Bautista throughout his troublesome start has been that the Blue Jays icon will come out of it. Some way, some how — he’ll come out of it.
Cue Bautista, in the midst of a tie game against the Seattle Mariners Saturday afternoon, stepping into the box with two on and one out in the bottom of the seventh inning. He took a ball up and out of the zone, accepted a called strike on the black, and then saw an elevated 91-m.p.h. fastball from Mariners reliever Nick Vincent that made his eyes go wide.
[snippet id=3319157]
Bautista demolished the pitch, sending it 430 feet in the opposite direction at a speed of 106 m.p.h., violently placing a souvenir into the standing-room seats in centre field to win his team a game. Bautista knew he got all of it, watching the ball fly at the end of that classic uppercut follow-through of his, before walking out of the box and beginning a slow trot around the bases. It was just like old times.
“Jose’s been doing that for this team for years. Since I was a little boy, I feel like,” said Marcus Stroman, who threw six innings of two-run ball in Saturday’s 7-2 win over the Mariners. “He’s huge for us. And now his timing’s getting where it needs to be, he’s starting to feel better, he’s starting to be a little bit more aggressive in there. And you’re seeing what he’s been doing for his entire career — which is clutch hits, home runs, and big-time knocks.”
It appears that the Bautista you’re familiar with, the guy who was one of the most feared hitters in the American League for nearly a decade, has re-emerged the last few days. He now has three home runs over his last four games — he had two in his first 33 — as his strikeouts have become less frequent, replaced by the disciplined, dangerous plate appearances that have been a hallmark of his post-age-28 career.
“You can see it in his face, you can see it in his eyes, you can see it in his walk up to the plate,” said Devon Travis. “You know when Jose’s ready to go. I’ve been looking at that a lot. And those eyes have been telling me he’s there.”
Who’s to say if it’ll continue. It’s only been four games. But it’s hard to see Bautista’s roll as anything but an encouraging sign for a beleaguered hitter and a beleaguered team, both of which appear to be turning their fortunes around. With their victory over the Mariners Saturday, the Blue Jays are winners of four in a row, six of their last seven, and 10 of their last 14 as they try to put a franchise-worst start to the season behind them.
“I’m just getting good pitches and I’m not missing them,” Bautista said. “I think we’re all showing up here every day to work hard and get wins — and we’ve been doing that lately. Everything’s easier when that happens.”
Meanwhile, Stroman threw another strong outing, striking out nine for the fifth time in his career and second time this season. He allowed runs in the fifth and sixth, but otherwise kept a dangerous Seattle lineup contained. Gibbons then used six relievers to get through the game’s final 12 outs without another run scored, as Toronto’s bullpen continued its strong month.
Seattle mustered 12 hits on the day — eight against Stroman — and put multiple runners on base in seven separate innings. But the Blue Jays were repeatedly able to pitch out jams.
Ezequiel Carrera drove in Kevin Pillar with his team’s first run in the third inning, before Kendrys Morales jumped all over a 1-0 sinker from Mariners reliever Tony Zych in the sixth, crushing it 427 feet into the right-centre-field bleachers for a second. And then, in the seventh, Bautista got that high fastball. And you know how that turned out.
“He’s showing up at the right time,” said Pillar, who went 3-for-4 on the day and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the eighth. “We as his teammates keep reminding him, it’s not about what you’ve done, it’s about what you’re going to do for us today. Don’t worry about what the batting average says up there.”
Tomorrow, the batting average will say .185 when Bautista makes his first plate appearance, along with a .309 on-base percentage and .333 slugging. Those numbers are still well below his career averages, but considerably improved from where they sat only four days ago, when Bautista was still stuck on two home runs.
He’s hit three since. And he plans to hit a whole bunch more, while helping his team continue to rebound from its disastrous 2-11 start to the season. But, for now, the question remains: is this the real Bautista? And are these the real Blue Jays?
“Time will tell,” Bautista said. “But everybody’s showing up here working hard and trying to win. Nobody’s here moping around, feeling bad for themselves because we didn’t get off to the best start. We’re just doing what we’re capable of doing — as of recently, more consistently. And hopefully we keep that going.”
[relatedlinks]
