Jose Bautista: Shut Up and Hit

Jose Bautista is certainly one of the more emotional players in baseball.  Between his mouth, his bat flips, and his home runs, Bautista always seems to be in the spotlight.  Now, generally I am a big fan of Bautista and I think he is a great player, but the comments he made after game two of the ALCS were ridiculous.

The Blue Jays are down 2-0 to the Cleveland Indians, and their offense has been nowhere to be found.  Toronto has scored just 1 run all series.  After game two, Bautista had some interesting comments on why his team has not been able to hit in the series.  

Bautista told reporters, "All you gotta do is look at the video and count how many times [Indians pitchers have] thrown the ball over the heart of the plate.  It hasn't been many.  They've been able to do that because of the circumstances-- that I'm not trying to talk about because I can't.  That's for you guys to do, but you guys don't really want to talk about that either."

People aren't stupid and know exactly what he meant by "circumstances"; he was talking about the home plate umpires.  Jose Bautista thinks that the umpires have it out for the Blue Jays and are giving the Indians better calls.  When looking at the raw data, that may be true, sort of.  The Indians have gotten more strike calls on pitches outside the strike zone than the Blue Jays, but that's because they've thrown more pitches there.  The strike zones in both games 1 and 2 have been relatively big.  The Indians have taken advantage of that and thrown a lot of pitches on the edge of the zone, the Blue Jays have not.  That's not the umpires conspiring against the Blue Jays, that's the Indians adjusting to the strike zone, and the Blue Jays not.  That is nobody's fault but the Blue Jays themselves.  Bautista shouldn't be whining about the strike zone, he should be making adjustments so he can actually get a hit.

Jose Bautista needs to shut up and focus on hitting the ball.  First off, complaining about the umpires is not going to do you or you're team any good.  At best, it makes you look like an idiot and has no effect on the game.  At worst, it pisses off the umpires and they actually hold it against you when making calls.  I think the first option is much more likely because MLB umpires are professionals and do not conspire to make bad calls against certain players or teams.  Umpires want to get the call right every time and do their best to do that, but complaining is not going to help at all.  

The other issue I have is Bautista has been horrible, and just seems to be making excuses.  Bautista is 0/6 with 2 walks and 5 strikeouts in the ALCS.  That is terrible for a guy who is supposed to be a superstar slugger.  It hasn't just been the playoffs either, Bautista had a lousy regular season too.  He missed a ton of time with injuries and finished with a .234 average, 22 home runs, and 69 RBI's.  Hardly the numbers that we're used to seeing from Bautista.  Rather than commenting on the strike zone, Bautista should be focusing on learning how to hit again.  Rather than blaming the umpires for his team's inability to score runs, he should be in the batting cage practicing.

Bautista is heading into the most important game of the Blue Jay's season.  He needs to do one thing; shut up and hit.  Quit complaining, start hitting.  The Blue Jays cannot go down 3-0, so Monday is a must win game.  Bautista is one of the most important players on the Blue Jays, and he needs to be catalyst for their offense.  It was extremely stupid of him to open his mouth and discredit the umpires, but that's in the past now.  Jose, just focus on hitting the ball and winning tonight's game.