On the final day of the regular season Mariel Bautista came through once again. The 20-year-old outfielder went 2-4 with a double, RBI, and a stolen base for the Billings Mustangs on Thursday night. His hit extended his hitting streak to 25 games, and while the Mustangs will begin the playoffs tomorrow, his hit streak doesn’t carry forward as far as counting games goes.
Mariel Bautista finished the season with 56 games played and a .330/.386/.541 line. He led the team in average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS and stolen bases (16). He was also in the top 10 in the league in average, slugging, OPS and steals.
The power output has been a big break through this season for Bautista. His eight home runs are a career high. In fact, he had only hit five home runs in his career prior to 2018. But it wasn’t just the home runs, he also added 12 doubles and 4 triples to go with those 8 home runs. Here’s your stat of the day: Mariel Bautista had 24 extra-base hits in 2018 to go along with just 29 strikeouts. Let that sink in for a minute, because it’s wild.
At the midseason point of the year I released my updated prospect rankings. The Billings Mustangs season was only 2 weeks in at that point. By then I had moved Mariel Bautista up to #18 in the rankings. Mostly it was due to a few graduations, and the decline from a few guys. Still, he was a guy I had been keeping my eye on. As things sit now that the season is complete, he’s going to be moving up quite a bit more.