BRADENTON, Fla. — Vernon Wells had the answer the other day in Lakeland.
Aaron Hill gave the same answer.
Jose Bautista.
Oh, you need the question. Sorry Mr. Trebek, wouldn’t want to put your show in Jeopardy.
Who has been the most impressive Blue Jay in camp?
Bautista didn’t disappoint again on Saturday with a lead-off double and then he hit a towering homer on to the roof of the Bradenton Boys and Girls Club beyond the left-field fence off Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Daniel McCutchen.
George Bell used to damage the roof in the late 1980s.
“I’ve been up there a few times, the wind usually blows that way,” said the former Pirate. “It was blowing pretty good today and that was a shot.”
Told that he was the pick of both Wells and Hill, Bautista said: “It’s great that my teammates think so highly of me.”
“I have to translate that into the season,” said Bautista, who will bat leadoff and is the everyday right fielder for manager Cito Gaston. “It didn’t matter that this was against Pittsburgh. It’s just another team to me.”
Bautista said he made an adjustment late last season working with hitting coach Dwanye Murphy, which helped him to this hot start this spring, which sees him batting .459 with six doubles, four homers and seven RBIs.
“I changed how I prepare myself, I’m getting ready for the pitch earlier,” Bautista said. “Sometimes I would hit the ball OK when I was late, but other times I would foul it off, or miss. You may only get one good pitch an at-bat, so you want to be ready when the pitcher gives one you can handle.”
Simple as that.
Bautista, as he said is not the “prototypical leadoff hitter,” filled in for injured Marco Scutaro atop the Jays lineup last year and hit leadoff in 2006 with the Pirates, when he hit .235 with a .335 on-base percentage, with 16 homers and 51 RBIs in 117 games.
With the Jays in 2009 he hit .235, had a .349 OBA, hitting 13 homers and driving in 40 runs in 113 games.
Back in action
First baseman Lyle Overbay worked out at Dunedin Stadium and took ground balls Saturday morning.
“It’s better than I thought it would be,” said Overbay, who left Friday’s game with a contusion on his left knee while taking the throw from Shaun Marcum on Carl Crawford’s bunt.
Outgoing
Catcher J.P. Arencbia was demoted to triple-A Las Vegas after hitting .190 with three homers and six RBIs in 14 games.
bob.elliott@sunmedia.ca
