Where Did Jose Bau-beast-a Come From?
I was recently reading Buster Olney’s blog on ESPN.com where he explains the reasoning behind where Jose Bautista’s power came from and what he did to become the threat that he is this season. Coming into the 2010 campaign, I can bet that not a single baseball fan out there would have expected that the MLB home run leader 56 games into the season would be Bautista. Through these 56 games, Bautista’s line looks like this .259/.380/.627. He has blasted a major league leading 18 home runs, and knocked in 45 RBIs (Note: all stats are through 6/4/10). If you look at his stats below from 2004 – 2009 (via Baseball-Reference.com), you can see that he was not a very productive hitter at all. He hit .238 throughout those seasons, with 59 home runs, and 211 RBIs. His strikeout percentage was a dismal 24% during that time period. This year though he is a BEAST. He is bound for a career year across the board. According to Buster Olney’s blog, he had a phone conversation with Bautista late last summer where Bautista explained that he began his swing mechanics more quickly, and late last season his effort at change began paying off. He has 18 homers, the most in the majors, and he has been hammering fastballs. When comparing the first 56 games of this season, to last season, it is quite obvious that Bautista is a much better, more productive hitter. Last season, he had 2 home runs, 11 RBIs, and a .371 slugging percentage. As seen earlier in this post, he has clearly turned things around. Let’t just hope that doesn’t completely annihilate the Yankees a la Ken Griffey Jr..
Image courtesy of Zimbio.com
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i read the title and immediately knew who wrote the post. i didn’t even need to check the by line