Brandon Belt is becoming a player of significance once again for the Blue Jays

When it comes to Toronto Blue Jays designated hitter Brandon Belt, he has certainly had quite the roller coaster season so far in 2023.

Everyone could recall the horrendous start to the season in which he struck out for almost half of his at-bats and it certainly felt like he couldn’t hit a beach ball even if he tried to. Then miraculously, he somehow changed his fortunes and heated up big time in May, making everyone forget about his miserable start in the process.

Unfortunately, Belt struggles would rear its head once again as he ran into another mini-hitting slump entering the summer months of the season. But don’t look now, as Belt appears to be back and better than ever in August, playing his best stretch of baseball in a Jays’ uniform in terms of both hitting and run production.

Below is a summary of Brandon Belt’s performance by the month (as of August 22nd).

	April	May	June	July	August
Games Played	17	23	15	18	16
Batting Average	.170	.333	.260	.191	.321
OPS	.534	.940	.845	.746	1.155
Runs Scored	5	9	7	9	15
Home Runs	1	1	2	4	6
RBI	5	7	6	8	10
Walks	6	16	7	14	12
Strikeouts	27	27	24	24	19

With the critical part of the Jays’ schedule coming up in these final few weeks of the season, Belt has gotten hot at just the right moment to help provide the much-needed offensive boost to the ballclub. Not only that, with his proven hitting consistency in recent weeks, he has now moved up to the top part of the batting order to wreck his havoc on opposing pitchers more frequently.

More importantly, Belt has also shown recently he can deliver in the biggest moments of the game, as he provided the go-ahead, two-run homer in extra innings against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday to propel the Jays to a 6-3 win. So the Jays may have found their clutch hitter down the stretch if he manages to keep it going.

Brandon Belt would like us to tell you he's the MVP.

This tweet may or may not have been written by Brandon Belt. pic.twitter.com/qITj9Y2WI2
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) August 23, 2023

Along with the recent improvements of both Daulton Varsho and Cavan Biggio, all of the sudden, the left-handed batters in the Jays’ lineup are a force to be reckoned with and will no doubt give the Jays a huge advantage in key matchups down the stretch. And from the way it is looking right now, there’s no one better to lead the charge than the wily veteran Brandon Belt himself.

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