Jose Bautista start his long and successful journey in Toronto in 2008 with 56 atbats and 3 homers and 10 rbis. It was a very slow start with 3 homers in 2009 before September but then fireworks were set off and the rest was history making with 10 homers and 27 rbis in September. 2010 was like usher said o my god 54 homers and 124 rbis and batting average .260 and .378 obp and was 4 in mvp voting behind winner josh Hamilton. He then took it the next level in 2011 with a .302 batting average and .447 with 43 homers and 103 rbis and finished 3 in mvp voting behind Justin verlander.
He had set his name in jays history with 97 homers and 227 rbis in two seasons and he was not the healthy next 3 seasons with 92 games, 118 games, and a hurt arm 155 games which hurt his throwing in 2014 but his homers still being strong with 27,28, and 35 in 2012, 2013, and 2014 respectively.
Then came the best seasons the jays have had since 1992-93 when they won the AL east in 2015 and beating the Texas Rangers in 5 games with the bat flip heard around the world in th 7th inning of the deciding game to break a 3-3 tie and the jays a 6-3 victory.and then losing to the kc royals in 6. Then in 2016 the jays hosted the wildcard game against the orioles and then beat the Rangers in a 3-game sweep and lost to the Indians in 5 games.
He did go out with a whimper fighting with keeping his average above .200 and set a strikeout record for the jays with 160 ks/
He fought with everybody from the umps to the texas Rangers to Baltimore Orioles and Rougned Odor and Darren O'day and everybody in-between and it made me mad at time laugh at time, and frustrated at times.
after 1228 games 287 homer and 762 rbis with a batting average of .253 and a obp of .372 with 1097 hits Jose Bautista a jays legion and will be on the level of excellence as soon as he retires in a few more seasons some where else.
Thank you jose, jose, jose
Tom Mehegan
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