TORONTO — After Vladimir Guerrero Jr. concluded his trot around the bases and crossed home plate, there was one more thing to do before he donned the Toronto Blue Jays' home run jacket.
The first baseman looked toward the upper-level suites at Rogers Centre and pointed with his left hand, as if to say, "This one's for you."
Turns out his Hall-of-Fame father, Vladimir Guerrero, was seated there witnessing something he’d never seen from his son.
“You guys are not going to believe this, but this is the first homer that my dad saw from me — live, in person, in the big leagues,” Guerrero Jr. told media through interpreter Hector Lebron. He later clarified that his father witnessed his homer in the 2021 All-Star Game, but this was obviously different.
“Once I hit it, I knew it was gone,” said Guerrero Jr. “When I pointed to him, then I was kind of like, ‘Wow, finally he saw one.’”
Guerrero Jr. took control of Thursday’s game, driving in four runs and falling a single short of the cycle in the Blue Jays’ 7-6 win over the Baltimore Orioles. His production backed a strong outing from Kevin Gausman that helped the Blue Jays capture the series over the American League East leaders.
Guerrero Jr. doubled in his first at-bat, homered in his third and hustled around the bases for a triple in his fourth plate appearance. Each hit was smoked to the opposite field with respective exit velocities of 104.1 m.p.h., 103.6 m.p.h. and 99 m.p.h.
“He's as good as anyone right now, really,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “You're watching a really great player kind of figure some s--- out right now.”
The Blue Jays slugger and reigning American League Player of the Week has been producing otherworldly numbers of late. Guerrero Jr. is now on a 20-game hitting streak during which he’s hit .506 (37-for-73) with 10 home runs, 11 doubles, 22 RBIs and 23 runs scored.
“You look at his power numbers and you look at his actual batting average, it's pretty remarkable what he's doing,” said Schneider. “You can have a hit streak — it's really hard to do 20 games — but you can be 1-for-4, 1-for-5 with a broken-bat infield single. The fact that he's impacting the ball the way he is, multiple times each night, just shows you how good he is.”
Guerrero Jr.’s OPS on the season has climbed to .945, which ranks eighth in MLB. This is as good of a stretch as he’s produced since his monster, near-MVP campaign in 2021.
The 25-year-old is not giving away at-bats like he did at times last year. He’s being hyper selective and is laying off tough pitches, then inflicting damage when he gets what he wants. Guerrero Jr. is approaching every plate appearance with precision and that’s what those around the Blue Jays feel is separating him from the competition.
“Every time I go to home plate, I have a plan,” said Guerrero Jr. “I'm not going to get out of my plan, so I'm very proud of that. I'm sticking with my plan every single at-bat.”
Gausman was a benefactor of Guerrero Jr.’s work on Thursday but pitched so well that he didn’t look like he needed it. The right-hander’s only real blip came during a four-batter sequence in the third inning that went walk, home run, double and walk. The right-hander keyed in, though, getting Ryan O’Hearn to ground out to end the threat.
He was lights out from there, retiring 15 of the next 17 batters.
“They were swinging so I felt like I did a good job of getting ahead or making good pitches even if they weren't called strikes,” Gausman said. “I was around the strike zone enough. You know, even the walks, I know I had three but was still around the zone enough to where they kind of respected every pitch.”
In total, Gausman allowed just two runs on three hits over eight innings. He struck out two against the three walks while tossing 100 pitches on the night.
The Orioles made the game close in the ninth inning. They loaded the bases off Blue Jays reliever Zach Pop and continued the damage against right-hander Chad Green, pushing four runs across the plate and bringing the score to within one run. However, Green recovered to retire Anthony Santander on a flyout to centre, preserving Guerrero Jr.’s feel-good story.
“He's the hottest hitter in baseball right now,” said Gausman. “Probably the most impressive thing is he's hitting the ball where it's pitched. If it's a pitch away from him, he hits it to right field. If it's in, he pulls it. He's really good at trying not to get too big on breaking balls right now and he's obviously locked in.
“You try to stay away from him and they didn't.”
As Guerrero Jr. was speaking with media following the game, Blue Jays special assistant Victor Martinez walked by and made a declaration.
“He's going to be better than his dad,” Martinez said.
That’s high praise, obviously, and when asked about it, Guerrero Jr. was quick to deflect.
“It feels great, especially coming from Victor,” he said. “But people that know me know that I want to be just like my dad. I don't want to be any better.”
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