Jose Bautista Nearing Milestone Matched by Only 8 Other Blue Jays

Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista finished the first game of Thursday's doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals 2-for-3 with a walk and a run scored.

While the batting line itself is rather pedestrian, the two base hits inched the veteran closer to joining eight other Blue Jays in the 1,000-hit club, per Sportsnet Stats. Coming into the day, the veteran slugger possessed 994 career hits while wearing a Blue Jays uniform. The two hits Thursday mean he'll need just four more to reach quadruple-digit base knocks.

Bautista has seen a resurgence of his career since joining the Blue Jays, but his pace has slowed in recent seasons. After leading the league in home runs in both 2010 (54) and 2011 (43), Bautista saw a slight dip in the following two campaigns before racking up another 35 in 2014 and 40 in 2015.

The slugger's numbers took a nosedive last season, as he collected just 22 bombs. That can be partially attributed to his missing a chunk of time due to injury, but his pace alone still would have likely kept him below 30 for the season. Bautista also batted a career-low (other than 11 games in 2005) .234 over 116 games.

Toronto missed out on inking Edwin Encarnacion to a contract extension, so the club decided to keep the 36-year-old outfielder around on a one-year deal that includes a mutual option for 2018. Unfortunately, Bautista hasn't turned things around early in 2017. Through 21 contests this season, he owns just a .165 batting average and just one home run.

The Blue Jays as a whole have struggled offensively, sitting near the bottom of the league in runs per game thus far. With both Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki sidelined due to injuries and Bautista slumping, it's tough for the club to come across runs. Things only figure to get better from an offensive standpoint in the future when the club gets healthy and Bautista rounds into midseason form, but it remains to be seen whether Toronto will compete in the AL East.