Jose Bautista hit an opposite-field homer, which is actually much rarer than you might think
Leading off the bottom of the first inning, Bautista shot the Blue Jays to a quick 1-0 lead with a homer that barely cleard the wall in right field. It looked like this:
With Bautista having steadily established himself as one of the more premier sluggers in the game, then, you might think the visual above is nothing out of the ordinary. However, you'd be wrong to assume as much.
How rare is a Jose Bautista opposite field HR? Pretty rare. Here's his career HR spray chart since 2004 pic.twitter.com/mRVUTDDWyu
— Daren Willman (@darenw) June 28, 2017
It was his ninth career leadoff homer -- but only the seventh homer to right field that Bautista's hit to date.
To crunch some numbers and really put things in perspective, including Wednesday's blast, roughly two percent of Bautista's 322 career home runs have been hit to the opposite field.
In an eventful week or so for those who've hit leadoff homers, this is another fun fact to add to the pile.