After destroying the Twins over the weekend Jose Bautista has an MLB-high 16 homers this season and also leads the AL in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, runs, total bases, and walks.
People keep expecting him to turn back into a pumpkin and Bautista keeps performing even better.
In fact, dating back to May of last season Bautista now has 64 home runs in his last 162 games, hitting .291 with a .400 on-base percentage, .700 slugging percentage, 119 walks, and 131 RBIs in one full season’s worth of playing time.
Here are the MLB leaders during that same span:
HOMERS RBIs SLUGGING
JOSE BAUTISTA 64 JOSE BAUTISTA 131 JOSE BAUTISTA .700
Albert Pujols 42 Alex Rodriguez 129 Josh Hamilton .646
Mark Teixeira 40 Miguel Cabrera 123 Joey Votto .603
Miguel Cabrera 38 Ryan Howard 123 Miguel Cabrera .596
Prince Fielder 38 Joey Votto 120 Troy Tulowitzki .590
To lead baseball in homers with 64 when no one else has more than 42 is amazing enough, but to do that while also leading baseball in walks is remarkable. Bautista has homered once every 8.9 at-bats, which would rank ninth all time on the single-season leaderboard behind a bunch of years from Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Mark McGwire.
And his dominance actually stretches further back than 162 games. Dating back to September 5, 2009 he’s hit .278/.398/.659 with 80 homers in 220 games. Albert Pujols ranks second with 53 homers during that time.