Damien Cox of the Toronto Star pointed out this past weekend that Jose Bautista, the major league home run leader, may be having such a dream season due to – yup, you guessed it – performance enhancing drugs. He did not state whether he knew for a fact that Bautista was juicing, just merely that we, as fans, have an obligation to question such a dramatic increase in performance thanks to what we’ve witnessed in the last 20 years of Major League Baseball.

Does Cox have a point? Maybe. Should he have shared his opinion in print media? Absolutely not. It would be ridiculous to think that he’s the first one to come up with the idea that Bautista’s now-40 home run season may not entirely be on the up-and-up, but to do so using his national column is irresponsible. Bautista’s had to field the same question from reporters several times now, constantly and consistently denying any use.

The Steroid Era has left us with doubts over any current baseball player having an above-average season. It’s become a sort of guilty-until-proven-innocent motto. It’s not fair to all players, cheating or not, but especially to those who are truly clean and trying to play the game it was meant to be played. But authors like Cox still pour their glass-half-empty opinions on the world. Players can have bad seasons and everybody hopes they bounce back the next year, but when players apply a lifetime of knowledge towards improving their game and start seeing results, they must be cheating.

In addition to “absolutely not,” Bautista took out some frustrations on Yankee pitching on Monday night, smashing two absolute bombs over the left field fence, increasing his major league leading home run count to 40; seven ahead of Albert Pujols. Whether Bautista is using performance enhancing drugs or not, he has not tested positive for them in any drug test this year. Until he’s proven to be a cheater, let him swing away as he does. He’s still not going to come close to any records.