Major League Baseball

Slugging Jays keep piling up home runs

Published Aug. 20, 2010 12:03 a.m. ET

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Rays manager Joe Maddon knew it would happen. You face the Toronto Blue Jays, you expect them to hit home runs.

Still, even Maddon was impressed by this display.

Maddon got a close look at the majors' most powerful team when the Blue Jays clubbed eight homers in a 17-11 victory over Tampa Bay on Aug. 7.

''The inevitable happened today, although magnified a bit,'' Maddon said afterward. ''I wasn't really counting on eight.''

That was just the latest barrage in a season of heavy hitting by the Blue Jays, who had 183 homers after Wednesday's 5-4 loss at Oakland, 18 more than the second-place Boston Red Sox.

''I don't think anyone would have predicted that,'' outfielder Vernon Wells, who has 22 homers, said last week. ''We knew we'd hit some but it's been an eye-opening experience. It's been fun to be a part of.''

Toronto had more than doubled up on six major league teams, including Pittsburgh, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Kansas City, Houston, Seattle and Oakland. Three more teams, Cleveland, San Diego and the New York Mets, had less than 100 homers for the season.

Toronto's improbable team leader is Jose Bautista, who slammed his 37th homer in Monday's victory over the Athletics. Toronto's leadoff hitter on opening day bats third now, ahead of Wells, and had never hit more than 16 in a season before this year.

''Sometimes we get back into games or on top of opponents by hitting the long ball and that's when it's really fun,'' Bautista said. ''It's kind of like a sneak attack where you're behind a couple of runs and all of a sudden you're right back in the game.''

The Blue Jays are on pace for 247 homers, which would break the 2000 club record of 244 but still leave them short of Seattle's all-time record of 264, set in 1997.

Wells said players around the league have been asking him about Toronto's offensive outburst.

''I talk to guys and their biggest question is 'What are you guys doing over here?''' Wells said. ''Up and down the lineup, guys are hitting home runs. I don't really have an answer for them. My answer is get it ready and get your pitch and let it fly.''

Toronto's grip-it-and-rip-it philosophy traces back to the teachings of manager Cito Gaston. While teams such as Boston and the New York Yankees urge batters to get deep in counts and wear opposing pitchers down, Gaston preaches a more aggressive approach, telling his hitters to look for their pitch and turn it loose.

''He's not particularly keen on working too many counts and letting too many pitches go by if they're in the strike zone,'' Bautista said. ''He wants you to attack pitches over the plate and I don't see anything wrong with that. If the pitch is hittable, why not take a good swing at it? To me, that's translated into hitting a lot of balls hard.''

A former All-Star outfielder with San Diego, where he whacked 29 homers in 1970, Gaston's oft-repeated mantra is reminding batters to start their swing ''on time.''

When a hitter is consistently swinging too late, Gaston considers batting practice ''a waste of time'' when it comes to fixing the problem. Instead of the hitter teeing off on a steady diet of soft stuff, Gaston gets pitching coach Bruce Walton to stand in front of the mound and throw fastballs and breaking balls in the upper 80s and low 90s, forcing the struggling hitter to speed up his timing.

Walton's arm can't take that kind of punishment every day, but when he works with slumping batters, with Gaston and hitting coach Dwayne Murphy looking on from behind the cage, the results have been impressive. Catcher John Buck had a session with Walton before an April 29 game against Oakland, then went out and hit three home runs.

''It seems like every guy we've taken out there and done that with, he's done OK for a while,'' Gaston said.

Bautista got a similar lesson last summer from Murphy, who took him aside in the weight room and had the 29-year-old Dominican slugger swing in front of a mirror to see how to get his hands and feet moving sooner.

''It's very simple, but it's easier said than done,'' Bautista said. ''It's pretty easy to do it in practice but it's pretty difficult to execute during the game.''

Once he put the pieces together, Bautista showed a glimpse of his power potential, swatting 10 homers last year after September 1.

Still, as Buck points out, it's been ''feast or famine'' at times for Toronto, ranked 10th in the majors in runs scored and near the back of the pack in batting average (.250) and on-base percentage (.314).

Sometimes, even a power surge isn't enough for fourth-place Toronto. The Blue Jays hit six homers against Arizona on May 21, including three from Edwin Encarnacion. All six were solo shots, and Toronto lost 8-6.

''We've got to find ways to manufacture runs in a different way as well,'' Bautista said.

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