Today in Jays History: John Buck Hits 3 Home Runs

Eleven Years Ago Today

John Buck hit three home runs against the A’s.

The Blue Jays won 6-3. Buck drove in 5 of the 6 runs.

From the recap:

Jon Lott told us that Cito spent time with Buck during batting practice, making suggestions. That’s Cito at his best, one on one with a player. I don’t even know if it’s technique. I think it is as likely the calming presence that Cito has and just the feeling you would get that he believed you could do it so you don’t want to let him down. I get the feeling if he told me I could hit I would do it. Well maybe not.

Anyway Cito spends time with Buck and Buck hits 3 home runs and get 5 RBI. Man, I can see the line up of the rest of the players wanting Cito to look at their swing. Travis Snider had a great day too, it pales a bit in comparison, but he had a homer and a double. It is great, two guys that were getting ripped pretty good on here, had the big days. The sparse crowd was on their feet when Buck came up with a shot to hit his fourth homer. He tried.

Sparse crowd was right: 10,721 in Rogers Centre.

Buck hit .281/.314/.489 with 20 home runs that year. 15% of them on that day.

The big star that year was Jose Bautista. He hit .260/.378/.617 with 54 home runs that year. His career-high for home runs before 2010 was 16.

As mentioned, Travis Snider also hit a home run. Aaron Hill took three walks. He had a terrible start to the season, hitting .152/.300/.273. It wouldn’t get all that much better for him, but he did hit 26 home runs.

Rickey Romero was in his second season with the Jays. He picked up his second win of the season. Kevin Gregg got his 6th save. He’d end up with 37 (with 6 blown).