8/24 12:22: Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus says on his personal blog that Bautista has been drug tested at least twice this season and as many as ten times.

8/24 12:06: The mysterious surge of power has led to rumors regarding Major League leading home run hitter Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays taking steroids, but the 29-year-old outfielder denies being involved with performance enhancing substances.

“Nobody’s said anything to me, and I don’t see why they should,” Bautista said, according to Robert MacLeod of The Globe and Mail. “Baseball has a strict policy against those performance-enhancing whatever you want to call them.”

He added that there’s nothing more behind his dramatic power surge.

“It’s not a secret and I didn’t reinvent the wheel,” Bautista said. “I keep saying it because it’s the truth. It’s as simple as getting [his swing] started earlier, and I’ve got Cito and [hitting coach] Dwayne Murphy to thank for that. They kind of brought it to my attention and they worked with me extensively and it’s sort of the renaissance of my hitting. I owe it to them because without them it wouldn’t have been possible.”

Bautista is leading the Majors with 40 home runs.