After taking a year off (retired from blogging) I have decided to get back in the game, baseball has been on my mind and I want to talk, I want to talk about Toronto Blue Jay slugger Jose Bautista, the Sammy Sosa of the moment. When the 2010 MLB season began, the only real expectations the Blue Jays had for Jose Bautista was for him to be a reliable player, someone who was going to get 300 to 400 AB's, hit 10 to 15 homeruns, drive in about 50 RBI's, and hit around 250, a serviceable player if anything. No one could had imagine the surprise season Jose Bautista was about to have in 2010, he went from hitting 13hr in 2009 to a mind boggling 54hr in 2010, do you remember Brady Anderson?

This season Jose Bautista is repeating himself and the numbers are even better, so once again I'm beginning to wonder and I just don't buy into Jose Bautista recent achievements. I have seen way to many big names Dominicans ballplayers like David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez & Alex Rodriguez all in performance enhancement situations, it's like part of the game & culture in the DR, their always getting busted and suspended, all caught up in some illegal activity like fake birth certificates. So is Jose Bautisa all of a sudden doing  all this on the reals?

Jose Bautista has come far to fast and out of nowhere, in a short time he has turned his career around big time, not even in the Dominican Winter Leagues do I remember Bautista doing anything remotely close to what he is doing today in the majors. This is how far Bautista has come, lets start with his rookie season in 2004, he broke into the majors with the Baltimore Orioles where he was quickly moved to the Royals, from KC he then went on to the Pittsburgh, the Pirates then gave up him and he wound up in Tampa Bay with the Rays, in essence 4 teams gave up on him. In 2005 he was back with the lowly Pirates where he stuck around for the next 3 years, back in Pittsburgh he was now getting a regular opportunity with one of the worst team in baseball and he was nothing more then a 240 hitter who would go deep once in a while, his top HR output was 16 in 2006, in 2009 he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays where he would continue to put up the same numbers, but by his 2nd season with the Blue Jays things done changed.

2 months into the 2011 season and Jose Bautista has now taken his game too another level, not only has he continued to hit the long ball with regularity, but he is also leading the AL with a 350 batting average. Jose Bautista has now become Sammy Sosa and Tony Gywnn all in one, at the age of 30 he has become the most dangerous HR hitter of the moment, but why did it take this long? and how long before he is just another Miguel Tejada?