For Jose Bautista, a Reconsideration is in Order

It is no secret that man is fallible. The gift of free will and opinion opens man up to discovery, but it also makes him prone to mistakes.

Such is the case with a writer, especially one like me who opts to write editorial style pieces that are smothered in personal opinion and conjecture. That said, I think you'd find it rare when such a writer opts to review something that they've written in the past, and even rarer when that same writer chooses to reevaluate his writing and recant his opinion.

I'm all about bucking the trend.

In this case, I'm referring to a piece I wrote last year about the performance of Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays. In that article, I compared Bautista's improbable 2010 performance to that of Baltimore's Brady Anderson and Arizona's Luis Gonzalez, among others. I may even have alluded to possible steroid usage, even though I danced around the subject.

I owe Bautista an apology.

In the article, I wrote the following:

"That said Bautista has a chance to step it up next year, after some team rewards him with a large multi-year contract, to prove that he is clean. Obviously, he has the benefit of the doubt right now, as Major League Baseball has a testing policy in place and they are working toward testing for HGH in another season or two."

Well, I highly doubt that Jose Bautista read said article, but he certainly has responded to my challenge. As of this writing, he is tied for the Major League lead with 21 home runs, is 10^th in the American League in RBI with 45, and is second to only Adrian Gonzalez in the AL with a .332 batting average.

In the same article, I compared Bautista's achievement to that of Cecil Fielder, in that they were both late bloomers that overcame running around the league and in Fielder's case the world, to put up power numbers that they hadn't previously exhibited. Well, that may have been unfair to Bautista, at least as far as this year's numbers are stating. Fielder was prone to the strike-out, as were many of his teammates on those Tiger's teams of the early 1990's. Bautista, while striking out 116 times in 2010, has seemingly corrected that flaw in 2011, whiffing just 38 times in 214 at-bats. He's also on pace to walk close to 120 times, a product of the protection he no longer enjoys this season.

Long story short, Bautista is showing that he was deserving of the long-term deal the Jays gave him over the winter and that his 2010 season was no fluke. If anything, it is proof that a hitter can grow late in his career.

All he needs is a chance and someone to believe in him, including fans and writers.

Other Fragments:

• Last week I mentioned how the Pittsburgh Pirates were on the cusp on a winning record and they promptly responded by dropping two games. Well, it finally happened this week when the Bucs put together a four-game win streak and now sit at 35-33 on the season. More incredibly, they are just 3 games out of first place. Awkwardly enough, they are doing it on the back of a young pitching staff that ranks 8^th in baseball in ERA. Here's to hoping they keep it up.

• The Yankees are playing some creative baseball with their pitching staff, starting career minor-leaguer, and converted outfielder, Brian Gordon in yesterday's game. This while also having utilized reclamation projects in Freddie Garcia and Bartolo Colon to decent results. But can a team built like that continue to defy logic and find a way to win on that backs of that staff?

• The Oakland Athletics fired manager Bob Geren last week as the team went into a deep slide. However, maybe what really should be questioned is whether or not Billy Beane is still the right man to steer the ship. Certainly, Beane earned his stripes with daring moves and brilliant trades in the past, but baseball is all about what have you done for me lately, and Beane hasn't shown any such magic in the last few seasons. At this stage, he may be hard-pressed to hold his job long enough to see the Moneyball movie hit theaters.