Edwin ties club record with 14th homer in a month
TORONTO -- With a solo home run during the fifth inning of Tuesday night's 9-6 win over the Rays, Edwin Encarnacion joined Blue Jays history.
Encarnacion's homer off right-hander Alex Cobb was his 14th in May. That tied a franchise mark for the most by a Blue Jays player during any month.
The veteran first baseman has already set the record for most homers by a Blue Jays player in May. He's now taken his dominance a step further by tying the 14-home run plateau, which was previously set by Jose Bautista in June 2012.
"Everybody on the team right now feels very happy with the way we've been playing," Encarnacion said after the game. "It's not only about my home runs; it's just about winning games. We've been winning games; we have an eight-game winning streak, so that's made me more happy."
Encarnacion has easily been one of the hottest hitters in the Majors during May. The Dominican native has homered in three consecutive games, marking the third time this season he's achieved such a run. Even more impressive is that he's batting .340 (16-for-47) with two doubles, 10 homers and 15 RBIs over his past 12 games.
In 26 games this month, Encarnacion leads the Majors in home runs (14), extra-base hits (20) and total bases (78), and he's second in RBIs (27). Encarnacion was once known as a streaky hitter, but he's never gone on a run quite like this before.
Still, this run shouldn't come as much of a surprise, considering Encarnacion has been one of the top hitters in the game for the past 2 1/2 years. The only thing about his numbers this season that might be surprising is that he has 16 homers but didn't hit his first until April 22.
"You can't describe it," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "Eddie's on some kind of roll right now, as is the team. He got off to somewhat of a slow start, like he did last year, but you always knew in the back there it was just a matter of time. I think early on he was just missing some of his pitches, and he's not missing them now."