Jose Bautista is on pace to hit 64 home runs this year after he hit his Major League leading 19th home run against the New York Yankees last night. Bautista has even missed 9 games this season due to injury, so one would think that his home run total could be a little higher. Also, he finished with a Major League leading 54 home runs one year ago.
Jose Bautista had 116 strikeouts and his batting average in '09 was only .260 which is really a mediocre batting average for a Major League Baseball player. However, he has become a better overall hitter that the Toronto Blue Jays were looking for in their lineup this year. Yeah, sure the Jays were happy with Bautista's power production from a year ago. But it doesn't matter how many home runs one player hits as long as it is helping the team win ball games. The Blue Jays did have a pretty good season last year with a record of 85-77, but failed to make the playoffs due to them being 10 games behind the Wild Card winning Yankees.
This season, he still has the outstanding power, but now he is a much better overall hitter with only 23 strikeouts and an incredible batting average of .353. His amount of production has definitely helped the team win ball games this year with their current record being 24-23, and more importantly only trailing the first place Yankees by only 1 and a half games. Bautista was able to keep the home run pace all year last year, but will he be able to continue to hit home runs, keep his batting average up, and keep the strikeouts down in 2011? Also, will anyone else on the Blue Jays step up like Jose Bautista did last year? Well, the season is still very young, so only time will tell.
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