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Retiring slugger had two most iconic moments vs. same team
Jose Bautista Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports

Retiring Blue Jays slugger had two most iconic moments vs. same team

First, there was the bat flip. Then, there was the punch.

In a span of seven months, former six-time All-Star Jose Bautista produced the two most iconic moments of his career. They were also a pair of the most memorable moments for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 21st century.

Bautista signed a one-day contract to retire with the Blue Jays on Friday, five years after playing in his final MLB game. The news will surely have baseball fans north of the border reliving Bautista's famous playoff home run against the Texas Rangers in October 2015 and his subsequent involvement with Rougned Odor at the center of a benches-clearing brawl between Texas and Toronto in May 2016.

The 15-year big league career of "Joey Bats" can easily be broken into two halves -- his pre-Blue Jays days and everything after. The former 20th-round pick was somewhat of a journeyman across his first four-plus seasons before being traded to Toronto in August 2008 for a player to be named later (catcher Robinzon Diaz) in what turned out to be an all-time steal of a deal.

Diaz played 44 career big league games, while Bautista made all six of his All-Star teams with the Blue Jays from 2010-15, won three Silver Slugger awards and led the majors in home runs in 2010 and 2011. His 54 dingers in 2010 are still a franchise record.

Bautista's biggest contribution to the organization came during the 2015 ALDS against the Rangers, however.

Toronto was competing in the postseason for the first time since their 1993 World Series title and Bautista was making his playoff debut after over 1,400 career regular season contests. The slugger hit a series-clinching three-run dinger in Game 5 in what was the franchise's most memorable home run outside of Joe Carter's walk-off to win the 1993 World Series.

Bautista's emphatic celebration after he connected on the clutch long ball also started MLB's ongoing bat flip trend and is still arguably the most famous one of the last decade.

The Rangers seemed to hold his actions in their collective minds over the offseason though, and things came to a heated climax when the teams squared off on May 15, 2016. Soon after Texas hurler Matt Bush plunked Bautista while trying to break up a double play, the outfielder slid hard into Odor at second base.

Odor took exception, the two got into a shoving match and the infielder connected on a right-handed hook, igniting a huge brawl.

With Bautista's playoff home run taking place in Toronto, he was immediately cemented as a Blue Jays slugger and once he and Odor went at it the following spring, he became the most wanted man in Texas for a while.

The now-42-year-old had a remarkable decade stretch with Toronto and those two moments against Texas will long be remembered by fans north of the border.

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