HOUSTON – The ball left Jose Bautista’s bat at a speed of 108.9 mph, and ESPN’s Home Run Tracker calculates that it would have travelled 424 feet if the ‘A’ in the Astros Community Leaders well above the 19-foot wall in left field at Minute Maid Park hadn’t stood in the way.
Just like that, lingering questions about whether Bautista’s shoulder injury was draining his power were snuffed out.
"I feel like I’m having better at-bats and I’m swinging at more strikes. Every now and then when your plate discipline is there you’re going to run into a ball every now and then like that," the all-star slugger said of his sixth homer of the season in the Toronto Blue Jays’ 6-4 loss Thursday to the Houston Astros.
"Take it for what it’s worth, I’m happy I was able to contribute a little bit at the time, obviously unfortunate we couldn’t pull out a victory. I just want to keep having good at-bats, I had some good ones today, I’ve just got to continue to have that approach over the rest of the season. I’m sure my contribution will be similar to years past and that’s all I care about."
The home run ended a 14-game drought for Bautista, and was just his second since returning from a five-game absence to rest his shoulder April 27. He continues to be limited to DH duty due to the shoulder strain he suffered April 21, and there’s no timeline for when he might start throwing again.
"It’s always getting better, it’s just slow," he says of his shoulder’s progress. "It was a significant injury, not one that requires surgery, but it does need time to heal. It’s happening at its own pace, but there are no updates. Let’s not forget that it only happened two and a half weeks ago, and I’ve been swinging, so that definitely slows down the healing process. If I would have got immobilized for a few days and just went on the DL, I might be at a point now where I could start throwing. I’m not suggesting I wanted to go on the DL, all I’m saying is people need to understand that when you’re trying to recover and heal an injury but you’re also playing, the process slows down."
The reason Bautista can swing but not throw, he explains, is that he has full range of motion with his hand below shoulder level, but experiences pain whenever his hand tries to go higher. At the plate as a right-handed hitter, the right shoulder bears a much lower load than the left, or front shoulder does.
"The move I have to deal with when I swing is not a very big one," Bautista explains. "I don’t extend my arms way out there, so it doesn’t hurt me to swing, it hasn’t hurt me to swing since I started swinging. Initially it did a little bit, I tried hitting for a few days before I could actually do it in a game, so I’m not going to out there and put myself through pain where I can’t perform up to my capabilities and hurt the team. That’s why I’m swinging and it doesn’t hurt.
"It might sound odd," he continues. "Some things that are very, very simple like turning a knob or picking something up over my head, even if it’s a pen, sometimes bothers me more than swinging a bat. I can’t explain it, I guess it’s the physiology in the muscles that got hurt. That’s just the way it is, I’m not a doctor, I don’t dominate those terms and I can’t really explain to you exactly which muscles control what movement and which ones I strained and why it hurts to do some things and others it doesn’t."
The Blue Jays are 8-9 since he returned, and 17-19 overall, failing to find any sort of consistency.
Part of the reason for that has been inconsistent starting pitching, and the Blue Jays are just 2-16 when scoring four runs or less. As good as the offence is, that must change for the team’s fortunes to improve.
"These guys are extremely talented, they just have to go out and perform," Bautista says of the rotation. "There are streaks and sometimes you get off to a slow start, sometimes you get off to a hot start, that doesn’t mean that’s how you’re going to end. The full six months of the season is what you need to evaluate. Guys like we have in the starting rotation that have been around for a while, you can’t just judge off of one and a half months."
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HOFFMAN READY: Top Blue Jays prospect Jeff Hoffman completed his rehab assignment Thursday with four innings and 68 pitches in an extended spring game. The right-hander’s fastball was 94-99 mph and averaged 96.
Hoffman will make his pro debut May 20 with four or five innings for single-A Dunedin against Tampa, and team officials will be monitoring him even more closely from here on out.
The repertoire the ninth overall pick last year is featuring is generating all kinds of buzz, but there’s a lot of curiosity about how he’ll transition into more formalized games and better talent.
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REYES READYING: Jose Reyes had another successful round of hitting Thursday and he’ll take full batting practice with the Blue Jays on Friday.
A decision on next steps should come soon after for the shortstop, who’s coming back from cracked ribs and an oblique strain.
