At six feet, one hundred and ninety pounds, the Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista is not an exceptionally large major leaguer. But as you watch the ball come off the bat, often at puzzling trajectories, you can’t help but picture a Bo Jackson specimen with a thirty-eight ounce club.
Bautista is a success story of the post-steroid era; a guy who renewed in baseball a faith that impossible never really is. For six seasons he labored as a part time player, then an underperforming starter on a bad team. In 2009 Bautista was acquired by the Blue Jays, and in 2010 he hit 54 homers, tripling his total from the pervious year. He followed that with 43 last go around, adding a league best 132 RBI (in 149 games). And he was on pace for 50-plus again this year.
But then you saw something you never like to see in a slugger: a great swing ended in crippling pain. It’s often indicative of overload injuries, where one muscle group fires faster than another can support. Like a 100 meter sprinter winning a race and coming up lame with a hammy, perfection beyond capacity. Bautista turned on–in that fashion all his own–and crushed a towering drive well above the foul pole, and ten yards outside it. The reaction was delayed, and seemed to hit him in stages. He grabbed, hopped, squatted, rose and stumbled, and finally squatted again as the medical staff reached him. He walked off the field gingerly regarding the limp extremity before him.
The phenomenon is present throughout history. Myriad are the too-talented wunderkinds who’ve outrun hamstrings, out-swung forearms, out-thrown shoulders. Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp, Stephen Strasburg, Mickey Mantle, Chipper Jones, Ken Griffey Jr. And now Jose Bautista. The swing adjustments he made after his first year in Toronto unleashed a raw power and speed that is seldom seen twice in an era. (Prince Fielder might embody such an incidence.) Bautista’s wrist, it would appear, has fallen victim to that power. It seems there is a point within the elite at which the body’s abilities overspill the limits set by the gene code.
The turn is certainly unfortunate for the Blue Jays; it remains to be seen just how unfortunate it will wind up being. The team announced today that Bautista will likely remain shelved for some time beyond August 1st, the date he’s eligible to be activated. Considering the mele that is the American League playoff race (thanks to the new Wild Card format), the Jays are right amongst it, and it will be interesting to see how Alex Anthapoulos proceeds the next three days, as he’s already orchestrated one significant deadline swap to date.
A lot of the impending front office decisions will revolve around Bautista’s prognosis, as will the teams success regardless of further player movement. Bautista will be missed dearly until his return, and makes one ponder the risks of becoming the biggest, fasted, and strongest–even legally.
–Ari Glantz
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