It was during a warm Florida morning back in the early stages of Spring Training when Jays manager John Gibbons saw it. Standing in the batter's box was Alex Rios -- a player tabbed throughout his career as having unlimited potential -- and he looked different.

Toronto's manager leaned over to his bench coach, Ernie Whitt, and pointed to Rios. For the first time this year, Gibbons was seeing the months of work Rios had put in with his stance. The outfielder was ripping line drive after line drive and Gibbons could only ponder the possibilities for the upcoming season.

"The first day I saw him take batting practice, I saw some changes in his setup at the plate," Gibbons said. "I remember sitting there and talking to Ernie and I said, 'Man, I like the way that looks.'"

It has continued to look good.

Rios hasn't slowed down since he first showed up to camp, and he has earned the everyday nod in right field for the Blue Jays. The roots of his early success this year were planted during last season, when he began making a few key adjustments to his stance. Now, Rios has started to give Toronto a glimpse at what analysts have always felt he was capable of doing.

"It takes time. You look at the kid and he has unlimited talent. Very few guys have the talent that he's got," Gibbons said. "Sometimes, in the baseball world, you get impatient and you think something is going to happen overnight, but that's not the case. Very rarely is anybody going to take this game by storm from Day 1."

That's exactly what Rios has done this year, though. Rios belted a two-run homer on Opening Day against Minnesota and then he went on to provide one moon shot in five of his first seven starts. Rios began the season platooning in right field with Eric Hinske, but it didn't take long before he was starting on a regular basis.

Entering Monday, Rios was ranked second in the Majors behind Cleveland's Casey Blake with a .367 batting average and had gathered eight home runs and 27 RBIs in 33 games for the Jays.

Consider that Rios is averaging one home run every 15 at-bats this year. In his previous two seasons with Toronto, the 25-year-old Puerto Rican was hitting one homer every 82.45 at-bats.

Not even Rios expected that kind of torrid start.

"I don't put any expectations on myself. Whatever happens is going to happen," a soft-spoken Rios said. "I just wanted to be comfortable with what I had. I didn't expect any of this, but it's good. The results have been good."

The results weren't as good in his previous two big league seasons.

Last year, Rios' average dipped 24 points from 2004, down to .262, and he struck out 101 times in 146 games. His home run total jumped from one in '04 to 10 last season, but the Blue Jays still believed his power potential was much greater.

That started with his swing. Toronto hitting coach Mickey Brantley began working with Rios on eliminating a foot tap in his stride. Having a slight tap works as a timing mechanism for hitters, but in Rios' case, it was actually throwing off his timing.

When a pitcher was in his delivery, Rios would bring his front foot back before striding forward. Given his 6-foot-5 frame, the technique was hindering his ability to catch up to fastballs, especially ones on the inside portion on the plate.

"The bigger you are, the tougher it is for your timing," Gibbons said. "What would happen is the ball would be on top of him and his swing would break down. He'd be leaning back, and that's when he slows his bat down, and he'd get a bigger loop in the swing. He wasn't catching up with the inside pitch."

Now, Rios starts in a more crouched stance and only strides forward after shifting his weight back first. The tap is gone, and so is his tendency to lift his body up during his swing.

Rios did show flashes of his potential in 2005, though. He just wasn't able to maintain consistent success with the altered stance. It was a change that Rios was going to have to try to perfect during the offseason, and that began in Puerto Rico.

"Last year, he kind of took off, but then he kind of lost it. It was something new," Brantley said. "It's tough to make changes, especially at the Major League level. When he went home, I told him what I wanted him to do and he worked on it there also."

Rios went home to Puerto Rico to play winter ball with the Caguas Criolles. The only way that Gibbons, Brantley and the rest of the Blue Jays organization could continue to monitor Rios' progress was by checking the statistics from afar each day.

The numbers weren't telling the whole story.

Rios appeared to be struggling. In 19 regular-season games, he hit .229. The upside was that Rios had four homers and 11 RBIs in those contests -- a sign that his power stroke was still developing. Rios will point out that, while he doesn't want to use it as an excuse, his average suffered due to the adjustments he was still getting accustomed to at the plate.

"It's something that, any time you start something new, it's going to take a little bit of time to get used to it," Rios said.

Toronto saw the improved changes firsthand at the beginning of Spring Training but, nearly as quickly as Rios' two home runs in the intrasquad games left the yard, he was off to play for Puerto Rico in the inaugural World Baseball Classic. After Rios' early showing, Gibbons hated to see him leave.

"I'm glad he represented his country and all, but from a selfish standpoint, I didn't want him to go," said Gibbons, who was eager to see if Rios could continue to consistently display his new swing.

Though Rios only received eight at-bats in the Classic, he didn't lose a step when he returned for the Grapefruit League games. He hit .355 in 11 games for the Blue Jays and carried the success he had found through his new approach into the regular season.

"He took it upon himself to make some changes -- it wasn't anything drastic or anything major -- but he did it," Gibbons said. "Now we're seeing the results. Whether that's the reason he's doing this now, who knows? I just see more consistent, better strokes."

Rios is displaying the type of swings that have the Blue Jays believing this is the player they've been waiting to emerge for years.

"He has extreme talent and if it all starts coming together, which it's looking like it might," Gibbons said, "he can be a pretty darn good player."