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Examining Bautista's meteoric rise

On Sunday, Jose Bautista hit his 14th home run of the season. And his 15th. And his 16th.

I'm sure I'm not the first, and certainly won't be the last, to question where Bautista's power came from.

There are certain players, and Ryan Howard is a perfect example of this, that come into the league and immediately establish themselves as power hitters. Bautista is certainly not one of those players.

In 8 seasons, Bautista's hit just 129 home runs, however 70 of them have come since the start of last season. To put that in some perspective, Howard has been in the league the same amount of time, and has more than twice as many home runs (262).

Even more shocking: Before last season, when he hit 54 home runs, Bautista never hit more than 16 in a season, whereas Howard has never hit less than 20 (Except in 2004, when he only had 42 plate appearance).

Arguably two of the best power hitters in the game, Bautista and Howard have taken two very different routes to arrive at nearly the same place. Howard, however, has proven to be the more consistent player, and Bautista's sudden spike in power has some wondering if he's gotten some help in the form of a syringe.

I'm not here to debate if Bautista is on juice, maybe because I'm naive and don't want to believe it. However, at 29 he went from an average MLB hitter, to the best power hitter in the league. That doesn't happen. Unless you're Mark McGuire or Barry Bonds.

Enough with the steroids talk. Let's take a look at the one thing that doesn't lie: Numbers.

- From 2004-2009, Bautista averaged one home run every 29.7 at-bats. Since then, he is averaging one every 9.75 at bats.

- Bautista never hit over .260. Through the first quarter of the 2011 season, he is hitting .368, tops in the AL.

- His 1.388 OPS is nearly double any other season except for 2010, where it was .995. That is still almost .400 higher.

Here is a look at his regular statistics:

And here is a look at some of his ratios, which give a better look at how he has evolved as a hitter: