Eric O'Flaherty After Altercation With Jose Bautista: 'I'm Surprised He's Ready To Fight Again After Last Year'
Skull emojis. See, this is why the rest of the league hates Jose Bautista. Dude came into this game hitting a buck ninety-three and then he tries to pull some shit like this, hitting a home run, flipping his bat even though his team was still down by four runs, and then showing up the pitcher even though he’s off to his second consecutive shit season. And this is coming from someone who’s a big time #TeamBatFlip guy, but there’s a time and a place for that, and this wasn’t it.
And I get it. Nobody in the MLB has more home runs than Bautista since the start of 2010. He’s got 256 of them now over that span. But it would appear that his days of being a premiere offensive player in the league are behind him, so nobody is going to stand for his antics now that he’s a below average hitter with a little pop and a whiny attitude.
There was a time when Bautista was one of the most feared hitters in the league, and when you rubbed him the wrong way, he could put you in your place almost on command.
But now? He kinda reminds me a lot of CM Punk. Dude was on top of the world in the WWE and had the reputation of being a badass with a big mouth. Then he went to the UFC and got twisted into a pretzel and tapped out in about four seconds. That’s kinda what happened with the Bautista and Rougned Odor fight last year.
Bautista was a legitimate badass because he could get knocked down by a fastball, but decisively win that battle by launching a homer AKA the equivalent of fighting without actually hitting each other. But when it came time to actually throw hands, Bautista got knocked into next week and I don’t think his reputation will ever recover from that.
He’s got dudes in this league literally laughing in his face now because of it, so you can only imagine what’s been said about him behind closed doors by other players. Bautista hit a bomb, stared down the pitcher, and flipped his bat, something that used to intimidate guys. But here in 2017, it prompts laughter from those who he tries to intimidate. RIP Jose Bautista’s reign of terror: April 5, 2010 — May 15, 2016.