Guerrero Jr. making Jays’ post-contract impact
Vlad puts personal stamp on consecutive wins vs. Boston
Major-league Baseball, with regard to even its greatest hitters, is a game built on failure and an ability to confront it. Nowhere is that more apparent than when you are a young man attempting to live up to the heavy burden of being the third-highest total value player in major-league history. Such has been the plight of Vlad Guerrero Jr.
It has not been easy. Following the opener of the Red Sox series, on Tuesday, and ever since the glitzy Rogers Centre media conference on April 14 to introduce Vlad and his extended guest list of about 20 family members to fans who already knew who he was and didn’t need the superfluous pomp, it seemed the realization of the magnitude of the deal consumed him. His numbers suffered. Face it, when you are earning half-a-billion dollars, scheduled to be paid off from ages 27 to 39, extended failure in a sport, even if it is a sport defined by failure, is never going to be an option.
Vlad’s numbers for 13 games following his big Rogers Centre presser, from April 14-29, showed a .227 average, with three homer and seven RBIs, while the team was a dismal 4-9. But then, Games 2-3 of the Sox series happened. He stepped up as a leader.
On April 30, trailing 6-3 in the seventh, with two out and a man on base, Guerrero Jr. singled into left field setting it up for Anthony Santander to tie the game with a huge three-run blast over the visitor’s bullpen in right. Then in the 10th inning, after the brilliant Jeff Hoffman stranded the ghost runner on second base, Vlad took over in the 10th, not with his bat but with his legs and aggressiveness in a smart situation.
As the Jays’ runner on second to open the 10th inning, he hustled back to the bag and tagged on a routine flyball to centre, racing to third on a headfirst slide as the throw from Ceddanne Rafaela clipped his heel and bounced away. His emotional reaction coursed through the dugout. The controlled wisdom of that gamble was that even if he had been thrown out, the game would simply have gone to the 11th, but when he was safe, the Red Sox were forced to literally play defence with their strategy.
Manager Alex Cora, in extras, with Vlad perched 90 feet away from the win and just one out, chose to intentionally walk both George Springer and Daulton Varsho to load the bases and create a force play at home.
With lead-footed double-play candidate, Alejandro Kirk at the plate, the infield and outfield were both playing in. Kirk did his job getting the ball in the air to left field vs. the red-hot RH Justin Slaten. The Kirk ball would have been a sacrifice fly under normal circumstances but with the outfield playing shallow the ball landed and rolled to the wall, in a joyous walk off win. The Guerrero base-running gamble actually resulted in seven total bases for the Jays, the most important one being Vlad’s final 90 feet from third to home.
The next day, on May 1, with a chance for the Jays to win the series after they had looked so pitiful on the prior road trip and then in Game 1 of the Bosox series, Vlad seized another moment that will be replayed over and over the rest of the season.
Down 2-0 into the seventh, the recently returned Varsho homered down the left field line to cut the Red Sox lead to a single run. With one out in the eighth, facing the same guy, Slaten, Nathan Luke singled and Bo Bichette doubled to put the tying run at third, with the go-ahead tally now perched on second. Vlad, after two hellacious cuts, battled through six pitches and worked the count full. The next pitch, from a hot reliever, was a strike, low in the zone. He crushed a breaking ball at 111 m.p.h a ball that left the yard in a hurry and bounced in the third row of the bleachers back onto the field. The Jays led 4-2 and Closer-2, Yimi Garcia nailed it down in the ninth.
Guerrero Jr. proved on Thursday that, in baseball, early failure is never an excuse for late failure. Consider that, prior to his game-deciding three-run blast, Vlad had swung the bat 12 times in his four at bats, with seven swings-and-misses, four foul balls and just one ball in play, a weak grounder to second base. But on his 13th swing he became a hero and maybe signalled an offensive turnaround for himself and his teammates.
“It’s a difficult schedule, but we’re here right now and we’re getting better,” Vlad said via interpreter Hector Lebron. “Things are turning around, especially with us beating a team like Boston, a great team. That says a lot about us.”
Vlad chose to be where he is and given what his contract and perceived loyalty represent to his team, the city, two countries and as a face of The Show, over the next 14-plus seasons, any moments of failure or thoughts by fans of a perceived failure to offer 100-percent must be minimized. Great expectations are a dickens of a responsibility. No longer can a simple shoulder shrug and a smile be the first option. Failure will always exist, but Vlad is showing signs of being “that guy.”