“The earth was shaking”: Blue Jays' Bautista recalls iconic bat flip homer (VIDEO)
For Toronto Blue Jays fans who weren’t around for the back-to-back World Series wins in the 1990s, there’s one play in team history that stands out above all the rest: that Jose Bautista bat flip in the 2015 ALDS.
Tied 3-3 in the seventh inning of a winner-take-all Game 5 of the series and getting a 1-1 pitch from Texas’ Sam Dyson, Bautista launched a home run deep over the left field wall to give Toronto a 6-3 lead.
Bautista then flipped his bat to the moon, the Rogers Centre erupted, and the rest is history.
The Bat Flip heard 'round the world! #BlueJaysOnSN pic.twitter.com/L4IuzW2Ww9
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) April 18, 2020
There was one person who didn’t remember the bat flip all that well though: Bautista himself.
Speaking to his former manager John Gibbons on the newly-released The Gibby Show podcast, Bautista opened up about the iconic dinger.
Reminiscing with @JoeyBats19 about his iconic home run against Texas in 2015! At least, the parts he can remember…#bluejays #gibbyshow #MLB #bautista #joeybats
Full episode video now live on YouTube:https://t.co/VEw0pYM9Elhttps://t.co/sTqOibOlLn pic.twitter.com/f0ziC7nGya
— John Gibbons (@johngibbons05) October 3, 2022
“The earth was shaking after that moment, the cameras were shaking… the whole [crowd] noise,” Bautista told Gibbons. “After I made contact, I don’t remember coming to until I was sitting in the dugout.”
Bautista reiterated that no, he really couldn’t remember much of rounding the bases.
“For me to recall all that, I have to look at the video because I don’t remember, the next thing I kind of remember is coming back to when I’m in the dugout trying to get a drink of water,” he added. “It was happening so fast. And the emotions were running so high that I basically lost, you know, my ability to remember when I was running around the bases, when I was celebrating with those guys.”
One thing he did remember though was his approach to Dyson’s pitches.
“When you get those sinkers that stay up in the zone, and you just barrel them, you barely even have to swing hard because the ball will just jump off your bat like a trampoline,” Bautista said. “And it’ll land in the stands. That’s exactly what happened. And that’s one of the biggest moments in Blue Jays history, I would say… by far the biggest moment of my career.”
Gibbons concurred but felt it was actually a bigger moment than maybe his slugger realized.
“Hey, I think it’s one of [the biggest of my career], man! Bought me a couple extra years!” Gibbons joked back.
Gibbons then explained his side of the story while trying to manage his own emotions about the then-tied game, shortly after the Rangers took the lead in the top of the seventh inning.
Toronto had actually filed an official protest to the MLB over the umpires awarding the go-ahead run to Texas following a lengthy replay of an errant throw from Jays catcher Russell Martin that struck the bat of the Rangers’ Shin-Soo Choo.
A pair of errors and a fielder’s in the bottom half of the inning allowed Toronto to tie up the game and keep two runners on base, setting up Bautista’s moment.
“There’s chaos in that place. And I was sitting on the bench, things are happening so fast. And I’m trying to concentrate, and it was hard to concentrate, right? So you, you go up to the plate, right? The way you’re describing it, how you’re thinking, well, ‘this is what I’m looking for, I’m going to do this and that.’ That’s what makes it great players, most guys… it’s such an overwhelming pressure,” Gibbons said.
“They’re human beings, they cringe on it, but the greats know they’re able to slow the game down. ‘This is my approach. This is what I’ve done my whole career, this is why I’m one of the elite.’ That is so hard to do. And that’s why you end up hitting a home run when a lot of guys punch out.”
Bautista replied by saying he just wanted a simple approach to get through his at-bat.
“It helped that he didn’t have a six-pitch repertoire, right?” Bautista added. “But he was really good. And his ball moved a ton. But I kept my approach simple. Got myself a hitters’ count, and bought myself a pitch in the zone. And then I didn’t miss it. Which when you’re trying to put it into a summary, what is hitting all about. That’s good, right? If you do that consistently enough, throughout a career, you’re gonna be a hell of a player. And I was able to do that at that at bat.”
While Bautista’s time in the MLB is over, we’re just three days away from the next playoff game at the Rogers Centre. Only time will tell what the next legendary moment will be.
The full interview is available here:
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