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Decade and MLB consultant for over two decades) and Fred Claire (World Series-winning general
manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and member of the club’s front office for 30 years.)

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The team that few believed could make an impact in the East after last season, has continued to prove many wrong, day in and day out. The big bats up North have catapulted themselves into one of the best records in baseball at 34-27, and lead the second place Orioles by 5.5 games in the ever-so-tough AL East. The big spending in the pre-2013 offseason is finally beginning to pay dividends, and Alex Anthopoulos is starting to get the credit he deserves. Reyes, Melky, R.A. and the rest of their new acquisitions are starting to show their potential as a unit, but the main reason the Toronto Blue Jays are the kings of the East is because of possibly the best 3-4 tandem in baseball. The punch of Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion has the ability to make any pitcher shake in their shoes, and the month of May proved nothing different, as they both did their fair share in making history.

Bautista and Encarnacion accounted for 22 home runs in the month of May, Encarnacion owning 16 of those. His 16 home runs in May was 2nd in Major League history, trailing only Barry Bond’s 2001 record of 17. He led the league in HR’s, SLG percentage, and extra base hits, but perhaps the most impressive stat in the bunch would be the whopping 5 multi homerun games in a single calendar month. Between May 20th and 21st, he hit 4 home runs in the span of less than 36 hours against the Boston Red Sox, 2 of them coming off Clay Buchholz on the 21st. Although he has put up video game numbers in early 2014, he has shown minimal ability to drive the ball to the right side of the field, or even to center, but that’s just his thing. He’s a pull ball hitter, and it’s working. Encarnacion is only creating 0.42 runs per game in 2014 as a whole, but most of those are generated from the home run ball.

Jose Bautista has not put up the numbers that his partner has been, but he is still giving the Blue Jays the production needed to stay at the top. This year, of Bautista’s 13 home runs, 5 of them come on off-speed pitches (2 changeups, curveball, slider, splitter), showing that he can take a well-executed pitch out of the ballpark instead of having to be the prototypical 4-seam mistake hitter. Although his fly ball-out ratio has been declining (32% of fly balls are outs), he has made an extreme increase in hitting pitches that he did not excel on hitting last year. Bautista is hitting .444 on the season off of sliders, and 18% of his total hits have come off of changeups. This shows he can wait back and drive the ball hard, against multiple pitch types. Bautista has also shown that he is an impressive low ball hitter, and will lick his chops at a pitch up in the zone, so there really are few places to pitch to him. “Joey Bats” is a huge factor in putting the Jays in contention, and with the help of Encarnacion, don’t be surprised if the city of Toronto will be bringing home a trophy come late October.

NOTE: All statistics accurate as of 5/13/14

By Jack McMullen
AriBall.com

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