It’s a long way from baseball’s scrap heap to taking curtain calls, setting franchise records and inching closer to a spot in baseball’s history books.
But that’s where Edwin Encarnacion has been, and now look where he is.
That was the self-effacing slugger peeking his head out from the Toronto Blue Jays dugout in the sixth inning after hitting yet another monstrous home run at Rogers Centre Thursday night.
It was his second of the game, both two-run shots.
“It’s a great feeling now compared to where I was before in the beginning here,” said Encarnacion. “That’s why you’ve got to keep working hard and keep doing your thing, good things can happen. I kept my head up, kept working and you see what’s happening right now.”
He entered the game with a club-record 14 home runs for May and tied with Jose Bautista for the most home runs in any month– Bautista hit 14 in June of 2012.
His 16 home runs in a month now stands alone in Blue Jays history and leaves him tied with Mickey Mantle for second most in the month of May, and just one behind Barry Bonds who hit 17 in May of 2001.
His five multi-home run games in a month tie him with Albert Belle and Harmon Killebrew for the most in any month in MLB history.
It’s all the more remarkable given Encarnacion hit just two home runs in April, finishing the month with an OPS of .775. In May, 16 of his 31 hits have landed in the seats.
“I don’t know what to tell you other than it’s pretty amazing,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “He’s a special guy, he’s really locked in now. He’s one of the elite hitters in baseball and has really come into his own the last couple of years. What he’s been doing this month, I don’t know where it goes down in history but it’s pretty historic in my mind, I’ll tell you that.”
Even better, it appeared they were going to be the difference in what was inches from being the streaking Blue Jays 10th straight win. Both of his round-trippers gave the Blue Jays leads in a seesaw battle with the Kansas City Royals, picking up for starter R.A. Dickey, who gave up 10 hits and five runs in five innings of work.
Still, the Blue Jays were up 6-5 heading into the bottom of the ninth until Jose Reyes made an error with two out, bouncing a routine two-out throw to Encarnacion at first base that would have been the game-ending out.
“I have to make that play,” said Reyes.
Instead Jarrod Dyson came around to tie and the Royals plated two runs in the top of the 10th.
Just like that the Jays winning streak was over and Encarnacion was robbed of a well-earned moment in the spotlight.
But the ending can’t take away from Encarnacion’s historic month.
Adding to the jaw-dropping numbers is that it seems like everything he hits is a tape-measure shot. The availability of data being what it is these days, Encarnacion’s assaults on baseballs can not only be quantified, they can be assessed for their quality.
Heading into the game Encarnacion led MLB in “no doubt” home runs with eight, according to ESPN.com’s home run tracker. The data wasn’t available as of last night, but let’s just say both of his most recent shots passed the eye test.
“Sometimes I say, ‘Wow,’” Encarnacion said. “The second homer today, I said, ‘Wow, it’s crazy.’ But that’s how this game is.”
The first came in the bottom of the fourth as the 31-year-old Dominican crushed a 3-1 cutter from Royals starter James Shields with Adam Lind on to break a 2-2 tie.
On his next at-bat it was a four-seam fastball from Shields that Encarnacion turned on.
In each case the balls landed well up in the second deck in left field. So make that 10 no-doubters.
The bombs may not have won they game, but they helped Encarnacion burrow further into history.
Not bad for a guy the Blue Jays took on reluctantly from Cincinnati in a deal for Scott Rolen and who was released mid-season in 2010 and waived again later that year. The Blue Jays gave him a one-year deal for 2011 before signing him to $27-million, three-year extension that summer with a $10-million club option for 2015.
Considering he clubbed 76 home runs in the first two years of the deal and is on pace for 54 so far this year, rarely has history been made so affordably.