Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Touch 'Em All: Bautista walks away with a Jays record

Jose Bautista is drawing free passes faster than any player since home run king Barry Bonds. The current Sultan of Walks just isn't getting enough steady production behind him.

Jose Bautista set a Blue Jays record for walks. (Darren Calabrese/AP)
Jose Bautista set a Blue Jays record for walks. (Darren Calabrese/AP)Read more

Jose Bautista is drawing free passes faster than any player since home run king Barry Bonds. The current Sultan of Walks just isn't getting enough steady production behind him.

Baseball's leader in nearly every offensive category had better expect more of the same.

What a waste: Bautista walked three times to set a Blue Jays season record but was stranded each time in Toronto's 2-0 loss to Oakland on Friday night.

"I take pride in going up to the plate trying to hit balls hard, but at the same time I'm trying to swing at strikes, not balls," Bautista said after running his walks total to a major-league-

leading 102. "A lot of guys are going to try to come after me no matter what, but there are times when I know when they're trying to walk me. I don't think that was the case today."

The walks didn't seem to hurt Oakland pitcher Rich Harden much.

Harden matched his career high with 11 strikeouts, didn't allow a hit until the fifth, and combined with closer Andrew Bailey to hand Toronto its fifth shutout of the season.

No place like home

Here's a record teams wouldn't want to be associated with: According to Stats LLC, with their 6-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday, the New York Mets became the first team in major-league history to lose the opening game in their first 10 home stands of a season.

One more for the books

The Brewers' Craig Counsell, who recently seemed to escape ignominy by just this much, may yet find himself the subject of bar bets.

As his hitless streak grew recently, many media outlets reported that he was inching closer to the record of 46 consecutive hitless at-bats established in 1909 by one Bill Bergen, a catcher for the Brooklyn Superbas.

Enter the mighty Elias Sports Bureau, which went through the paper records and found a mistake in the old, crumbling box scores. Bergen's streak had reached 0 for 45, not 0 for 46, Elias said.

This meant that Counsell tied the mark after all and now shared it with Bergen and Dave Campbell, an infielder who accomplished the feat in 1973 with three teams.

When Counsell finally broke his streak with a pinch-hit single to right field on Aug. 4, he said: "It's been ugly, it's been bad."

Amen to that, brother.