Aaron hill hitting his first home run of the season followed by E5 (Edwin Encarnacion) belting his first of the campaign as well. Last season Hill hit 26 home runs while E5 hit 21, therefore not having one home run between their 281 at bats going into Sunday's game had been a huge disappointment thus far. Even more so for E5 because he is only on the roster because of his bat (8 errors in limited action in the field). Luckily, batting practice pitcher Jon Danks was on the hill and served up two meatballs to shake the monkey off Hill and Encarnacion's backs. A big assist also goes to Ricky Ro for giving Encarnacion his bat, which produced his first home run of the season. Sadly, E5 broke it later in the game, which also laid to rest the rumour that it was the reincarnation of Wonderbat. If Hill and Encarnacion can use yesterday's game to propel them back to the power numbers they produced last year the Jays could make a serious run in the American League. Being one game over 500 so far with little production from these two is quite impressive and with the return of Adam Lind in the coming weeks the Jays have potential to be one of the most powerful hitting teams in the American League. If even one of these players can turn their bat around and gain respect from opposing pitchers Bautista will be sure to see more pitches as opposed to the free passes he has seen quite frequently this season.
Co BMOD also goes to Jon Danks for chirping Bautista after Bautista missed one of his meatballs to weakly pop out. Bautista slammed his bat and yelled at himself for missing such a great opportunity to make the game 10-2 and Danks did not take too kindly to the gesture. Danks told Bautista to run the bases and not act like such a clown. In response it appears Bautista told Danks to shut his mouth and asked if he would like the batting practice cage placed in front of the mound or if he wanted a calculator to see how much that out lowered his ERA on the season. Some people might agree with Danks and say that Bautista should not be pulling such antics in a 9-2 game but I quite frankly love it. After watching 12 seasons of Vernon Wells' 'woes me, nonchelant' mannerisms I think it's great to see a player with burning desire to hit a home run every time he's at the plate and not settle for mediocrity or a 'I'll get him next time' attitude. This is Bautista's team and his energy rubs off on the rest of the Jays. If he's not happy when he misses a pitch in a 9-2 game then there's going to be some accountability when guys leave runners on in their at bats or ground out weakly to end games like Aaron Hill did last Sunday after a free walk was issued to Bautista.
Finally, the all star game is coming up and I encourage everyone to do their civil duty and vote. The Jays don't get a lot of support outside of Toronto (sometimes even little in this city). Let's make sure Bautista starts this game and I would also like to suggest a vote for JP Arencibia who is 2nd in home runs and slugging percentage and 4th in RBI's amongst all AL catchers despite playing only 36 games (8 games less than the average amount amongst starters). All this while being a rookie. He has also played extremely well in the field throwing out the 6th most base runners amongst catchers in the AL. Attached is the link to the website where you can vote. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2011/ballot.jsp
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