Jose Who?

I thought it was amazing that José Bautista hit his 50th home run last night. I know that he had been having an awesome year, but I didn't realize that he had shot up so quickly. He is also the first Toronto Blue Jay to hit half a century of bombs, so that is an honor in and of itself. Until this year, Bautista kind of flew under my radar, and I'm not sure why. However, if you look at his stats (which I'm doing on Baseball Reference), his previous career-high in home runs was 16 and that was in 2006. Before this year, he only had one season where he even played near full-time (2006 with Pittsburgh). He has nearly doubled his career home run output this season with 50 so far, and he only had 109 for his career. I cannot honestly remember any other player who has had that type of breakout after already having been in the Major Leagues for six years. So, I must congratulate José for his amazing year, but it is a shame that he played for Toronto where he was able to fly under the radar for so long.
Photo courtesy of http://f00.inventorspot.com/images/4_1196909807_baseball_player.jpg