Jose Bautista’s June Swoon

Image courtesy of Daylife via Reuters Pictures

In the wake of all the pitching injuries, it can be easy to dwell on the negative things surrounding the Toronto Blue Jays. The starting rotation may be in shambles, but there are a lot of things to be thankful for right now; namely Jose Bautista.

Joey Bats has been one of the few beacons of optimism on this roster, and what he’s done in the month of June alone has been nothing short of amazing. Some might have thought Bautista’s power had suddenly been zapped after he was the home run king the past two seasons.

Boy, were they wrong.


ADVERTISEMENT

And just like that, the Bautista we all know and love is back. And now he’s breaking franchise records in what I’d like to call Jose Bautista’s “June Swoon”. Here are just a few incredible stats from Bautista’s standout month:

Home Runs in June 13 1st in MLB
SLG in June .756 1st in MLB
Walks in June 19 1st in Major Leagues
RBI’s in June 26 1st in Major Leagues
Runs in June 21 2nd in Major Leagues
On Base Streak 24 Games Snapped June 26th

On Tuesday, Jose Bautista had his 24 game on base streak snapped. Incredibly, Jose reached base in all but one of 24 games he played in the month of June. And during those 24 games, he was held hitless during just 5 contests.

Or how about this? Jose Bautista has just only one more strikeout (14) in the month of June than he does home runs (13). Compare that with Adam Dunn who has the second most home runs in the Majors with 24, he struck out 39 times while hitting 8 home runs in June.

Yesterday, Bautista set a new Blue Jays franchise record for home runs in a single month with 13. That broke the previous record set by Carlos Delgado in August of 1999 and Jose Cruz Jr. in August of 2001.

For having this incredible of a season, it’s quite remarkable that Bautista’s BABIP is this criminally low. At a measly .167 batting average on balls in play, Jose has had to resort to hitting bombs to avoid making an out.

Image courtesy of Texas Leaguers Baseball

Jose Bautista only hit 7 singles the entire month, but 13 home runs. How is this even possible? I guess Jose really doesn’t trust hitting the ball on the ground, and he’d much rather go deep to ensure he collects a hit.

As you can see by his spray chart, Bautista has peppered his singles mostly through the middle, while the rest of his hits in June have gone deep for home runs. Talk about feast or famine at the plate.

Here are just a few more incredible facts during Jose Bautista’s “June Swoon”; he’s seen 37 sinkers from right handed pitchers this month, and not swung and missed on a single one. Jose has seen 36 fastballs from lefties, and not swung and missed on a single one.

The entire month of June, Jose Bautista’s batted ball breakdown goes like this:


ADVERTISEMENT

Fly Balls 41.7 %
Ground Balls 41.7 %
Line Drives 16.7 %
Home Runs 0.5 %

What really makes Jose Bautista’s June standout is over the course of his career with the Blue Jays, he hasn’t quite had a standout month like he is during June. And to think, there are still three games left in the month!

In his record-breaking 2010 season, Bautista never hit more than 12 home runs in a single month. In 2011, he never hit more than 11. Basically, Bautista has been the poster boy for consistency when it comes to power these last two plus seasons.

The starting rotation may be in survival mode right now, but so long as Jose Bautista keeps swinging a hot stick as he has in June, he’ll easily compensate for all the pitching deficiencies. Let’s just sit back and enjoy Jose Bautista’s “June Swoon”.

Ian Hunter

Ian has been writing about the Toronto Blue Jays since 2007. He enjoyed the tail-end of the Roy Halladay era and vividly remembers the Alex Rodriguez "mine" incident. He'll also retell the story of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS to his kids for the next 20 years.

9 thoughts on “Jose Bautista’s June Swoon

  • June 28, 2012 at 3:08 pm
    Permalink

    Me gusta Jose Bautista.

  • June 28, 2012 at 3:34 pm
    Permalink

    If Jose Bautista had the same BABIP as last year, he'd have a .324 batting average for the season. Just goes to show how much luck can play a factor.

    • June 28, 2012 at 4:50 pm
      Permalink

      Just another reason why Jose's AVG isn't a true measure of his talent this year. He's slugging .756 this month alone!

  • June 28, 2012 at 5:37 pm
    Permalink

    His bat may compensate for the lousy pitching as far as entertainment value (I'll watch games to see him hit) but not in the W/L column.

    • June 28, 2012 at 9:23 pm
      Permalink

      Bautista can't carry this entire team on his shoulders alone, but the lineup definitely needs to pick up the slack while the starting rotation is licking their wounds.

      You really can't ask much more of Lawrie/Rasmus/Bautista/Encarnacion right now.

  • June 28, 2012 at 8:42 pm
    Permalink

    You sure for now? The .500 record wouldn't be possible without the bats.

  • June 29, 2012 at 12:21 am
    Permalink

    I'm I goofing this one? It seems that the 0.5% HR batted ball stat has to be way off, and that the true number must be much higher. 0.5% means that 1 out of 200 batted balls by Bautista is a home run. He has 13 HRs in 25 games (as of the time of this blog posting). This means that if 0.5% is accurate, Bautista has batted 2600 balls this month. If we assume an average of 4 at bats in 25 games, and 5 pitches per at-bat (a more than generous estimate), he would only have seen about 500 pitches.

    • June 29, 2012 at 4:39 am
      Permalink

      I don't know if the math is goofy on the batted balls, but I'm getting 100.6% – that can't be right? Or maybe there's a lot of rounding up with the percents.

Comments are closed.