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| "yes sir, there she goes; let's admire that one" as an old friend used to say |
When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a fifth-inning home run off of a lightly hanging Logan Gilbert curveball to put the Blue Jays up five-nothing in Game Six of the 2025 American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners last October (watch it here, should glory rank amongst your interests at all), who could have believed that it would be Vladdy's last home run in the SkyDome until the following September? Probably pretty much no one! For sure not me! And yet this turned out to be very much our situation. When it finally came, this long-awaited dinger, it did so as the middle-dinger in the Blue Jays' first back-to-back-to-back home runs struck since 2012: then, it was Colby Rasmus, José Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion (I bet you would not have guessed more than two of those names, and I furtherly bet I know which two [same here!]); Sunday, it was George Springer, Kazuma Okamoto, and also Vladdy, tuckled right in between the two as previously mentioned. The crowd did not treat it lightly, nor did they treat it even the slightest bit Bronx-cheeringly, or anything, but instead greeted the moment with earnest celebration and encouragement, so much so that, with a little nod from John Schneider, Vladdy gave them a curtain call at the end and everything. I will admit to feeling a lot of feelings in that moment, and to have, in the realm of the spirit, fallen to my knees in the Mr. Sub located on Bloor Street West opposite the old Varsity Stadium (in the material world, I was simply at home, conventionally seated). The broadcast handled it like the strangely big moment that it was, too, offering no fewer than five commentary-free presentations from different cameras (having just watched some Vladdy postseason homers, and now this one, something that I prefer about regular-season home runs is watching first a few, then a few more, then just about everyone in the crowd stand up as they realize the ball has a chance; this is of course less the case in postseason contexts, where most if not all of the crowd is already standing in anticipation of the big moment [they sneak up on you a little more throughout the course of the long season), and playing CeCe Peniston's "Finally" not once but twice (two non-consecutive occasions!). "I believe in God, you know," Vladdy told Hazel Mae afterwards. "And it's not when we want, it's when God says, 'today's a homer.'" And how did it feel, Vladdy? "To me it's like, it feels so fucking good. Sorry guys. Sorry for the language. Sorry, sorry. But it feels good, you know, it feels good to hit it. I hope many more to come." A swear! A palpable swear! On a Jr. Jays Sunday no less! The crowd understandably loved it. The television broadcast was on enough of a delay that they caught it and muted their way around it, but it came through on the radio loud and clear, proving yet again that radio truly is the medium most decorous with the game (baseball on television? a great time, no question, but a little obvious; baseball on the radio? a gentleperson's pursuit).
Amidst all the understandable relief and excitement of the Vladdy dinger, let us not overlook that it came as part of a four-hit day for him, too, in which Statcast data suggests Vladdy's earlier double high off the wall in right-centre would have itself been a homer but for small swirl of wind that knocked the ball down eleven feet. Is Vladdy back? One always wonders, doesn't one? You may recall that after a long, late-season homerless stretch last year, Vladdy's remark to his teammates in the dugout (and indeed the call from Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez in the booth) following his ALDS Game Two grand slam against the Yankees (his second home run of that still-young series, and my preferred home run in all of Blue Jays baseball, no big deal) was the he was "back." The expectations surrounding Vladdy since he signed as a sixteen-year-old have only ever been such that when he's doing anything less than being more or less the best hitter you've seen (consider, for example, the whole of last October), the question "what's wrong with Vladdy?" persists. Obviously this season has been significantly different, as there really has been something wrong with Vladdy (though by fWAR, he has already surpassed his 2023 season on the strength of much-improved fielding and baserunning), but Bo Bichette made a great point when he was back in town with the Mets earlier in the season: though Bo did not dispute that Vladdy was undeniably having a down year, he reminded us that "what's wrong with Vladdy?" questions had been a feature of every season the two had played together, despite all the All-Star appearances and MVP votes and the lot of it. Pressure is a privilege, and all that, I suppose. Hazel Mae's last question after the game was, "You've told me that the support of your fans and your teammates has meant a great deal. Why?" To which Vladdy replied, "Because they know I'm human. I try. Believe me."
All of this would perhaps have been for naught, we should note, had it not been for the performance of Dylan Cease, whose start had been pushed back a day for extra rest given velocity concerns arising, no doubt, from his huge workload in his Cy-Young-contending season (he seems likely to finish behind only Cam Schlittler). It was another one of those weird ones where you can see Cease struggling, and throwing just so many pitches that it's not reasonable to ask him to go more than five innings, but at the end of those five, he's allowed just one run and struck out nine. It's been remarkable. The first started poorly for him, with a walk, a single, and another walk to load the bases with nobody out. But a crucial full-count ABS challenge by Brandon Valenzuela turned what would have been ball four and a run into strike three by the slimmest of margins, and two swinging strikeouts later, everything was cool, and Ricky Tiedeman, who was already up in the pen in case the first totally fell apart (a true playoff feel in this one right from the get-go), could, in relative terms, relax a while.
The Twins, alas, did us no favours against the Guardians in their Sunday afternoon affair, leaving us a game behind for the final Wild Card spot . . . or are we, we might well ask, having come across this medium-depth dive into the remaining schedule not just for the Blue Jays but the Guardians and, curiously, the slumping White Sox in equal measure. Its encouraging conclusion: because of the Cleveland/Chicago series that begins tonight, and the fairly incontrovertible fact that no fewer than one team is going to lose each of those games, the Blue Jays are in no meaningful sense trailing in their pursuit of WC3, in that, should the Blue Jays "win out," as they say, the worst-case result would be a tie with the Guardians, over whom we hold the tiebreaker. No one is expecting, certainly, that we're going to win all twelve remaining games (wouldn't it be weird though?), but the point (and it is well taken!) is that with this dozen games to go, it's all right in front of us: we are not in a position where we need any help or lucky breaks on the (Home Hardware) out-of-town scoreboard for this to happen (though, personally, sign me up for all the help and luck you've got). I am pretty stoked about it.
KS
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