Edwin Encarnacion Hits Homers As They Were Meant To Be Hit

Remember 10 days ago, when Toronto first baseman Edwin Encarnacion hit the crap out of a baseball? Before that monstrous shot, he had already hit the crap out of seven baseballs in the month of May. Since that homer, he has hit the crap out of eight additional baseballs. According to math, Edwin Encarnacion loves hitting home runs more than anybody loves anything.

With two homers last night, Encarnacion's long-ball count for the month of May stands at 16. He's only the fourth player ever to hit that many home runs in May, and he's got two more games to try and break Barry Bonds's record of 17. All of this has been coincident, by the way, with the Blue Jays taking the lead in the American League East. It's been a hell of a month.

Encarnacion's tear has been even more fun than the numbers suggest, due to the style with which he's been hitting. So far this month, he has five multi-homer games—he hit two in a game on back-to-back nights, too—and he's just been destroying the pitches he's been getting ahold of. According to ESPN's home run tracker, Encarnacion leads the league with 10 "No Doubt" home runs, which are classified as homers that clear the fence by at least 20 vertical feet and land at least 50 feet beyond the fence. The average true distance of his 18 homers (416 ft.) outpaces the league average by a solid 20 ft. Fifteen of his 18 long balls were hit far enough to leave the yard in all 30 major league parks. In other words, Edwin Encarnacion is hitting not just a huge number of home runs, but true no-doubters, the kind that make you gasp.

See for yourself. Here's his first shot from last night's game:

And here's his second:

There's no purer expression of the phrase "power hitter" in baseball now. He's hitting the ball harder and farther than anyone else in the game, and he's a hell of a lot of fun to watch.